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THE SECRET TOMB 

































































“Leave me alone! 


I forbid you to touch me!” 





THE SECRET TOMB 


BY 

MAURICE Le BLANC 

'i 

CREATOR OF “ARSENE LUPIN” 


/ 

FRONTISPIECE BY 

GEORGE W. GAGE 



NEW YORK 

THE MACAULAY COMPANY 



Copyright, 1923, 

By THE MACAULAY COMPANY 


/ 


OCT -9 liteJ J 


©C1A7G0744C^Q 

(1 ■ 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Chateau de Roborey .... 9 

II Dorothy’s Circus.28 

III Extra Lucid.49 

IV The Cross-Examination.66 

V “We Will Help You”.82 

VI On the Road.100 

VII The Hour Draws Near.116 

VIII On the Iron Wire.128 

IX Face to Face.144 

X Towards the Golden Fleece . . . . 164 

XI The Will of the Marquis de Beaugre- 

val.180 

XII The Elixir of Resurrection .... 198 

XIII Lazarus.214 

XIV The Fourth Medal.230 

XV The Kidnaping of Montfaucon . . . 241 

XVI The Last Quarter of a Minute . . 255 

XVII The Secret Perishes.274 

XVIII In Robore Fortuna.292 


















THE SECRET TOMB 



THE SECRET TOMB 


CHAPTER I 

THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 

Under a sky heavy with stars and faintly brighter 
for a low-hanging sickle moon, the gipsy caravan 
slept on the turf by the roadside, its shutters closed, 
its shafts stretched out like arms. In the shadow of 
the ditch nearby a stertorous horse was snoring. 

Far away, above the black crest of the hills, a 
bright streak of sky announced the coming of the 
dawn. A church clock struck four. Here and there 
a bird awoke and began to sing. The air was soft 
and warm. 

Abruptly, from the interior of the caravan, a 
woman’s voice cried: 

“Saint-Quentin! Saint-Quentin!” 

A head was thrust out of the little window which 
looked out over the box under the projecting roof. 

“A nice thing this! I thought as much! The 
rascal has decamped in the night. The little beast! 
Nice discipline this is!” 

Other voices joined in the grumbling. Two or 
three minutes passed, then the door in the back 
of the caravan opened and a shadowy figure de¬ 
scended the five steps of the ladder while two tousled 
heads appeared at the side window. 

9 


10 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Dorothy! Where are you going?” 

“To look for Saint-Quentin!” replied the shadowy 
figure. 

“But he came back with you from your walk last 
night; and I saw him settle down on the box.” 

“You can see that he isn’t there any longer, 
Castor.” 

“Where is he?” 

“Patience! I’m going to bring him back to you 
by the ears.” 

But two small boys in their shirts came tumbling 
down the steps of the caravan and implored her: 

“No, no, mummy Dorothy! Don’t you go away 
by yourself in the night-time. It’s dangerous . . 

“What are you making a fuss about, Pollux? 
Dangerous? It’s no business of yours!” 

She smacked them and kicked them gently, and 
brought them quickly back to the caravan into which 
they climbed. There, sitting on the stool, she took 
their two heads, pressed them against her face, and 
kissed them tenderly. 

“No ill feeling, children. Danger? I’ll find 
Saint-Quentin in half an hour from now.” 

“A nice business! . . . Saint-Quentin! . . , A 
beggar who isn’t sixteen!” 

“While Castor and Pollux are twenty—taken to¬ 
gether!” retorted Dorothy. 

“But what does he want to go traipsing about like 
this at night for? And it isn’t the first time either. 
* . . Where is it he makes these expeditions to?” 

“To snare rabbits,” she said. “There’s nothing 
wrong in it, you see. But come, there’s been talk 
enough about it. Go to by-by again, boys. And 


THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY n 

above all, Castor and Pollux, don’t fight. D’you 
hear? And no noise. The Captain’s asleep; and 
he doesn’t like to be disturbed, the Captain doesn’t.” 

She took herself off, jumped over the ditch, 
crossed a meadow, in which her feet splashed up the 
water in the puddles, and gained a path which wound 
through a copse of young trees which only reached 
her shoulders. Twice already, the evening before, 
strolling with her comrade Saint-Quentin, she had 
followed this half-formed path, so that she went 
briskly forward without hesitating. She crossed two 
roads, came to a stream, the white pebbly bottom of 
which gleamed under the quiet water, stepped into 
it, and walked up it against the current, as if she 
wished to hide her tracks, and when the first light 
of day began to invest objects with clear shapes, 
darted forth afresh through the woods, light, grace¬ 
ful, not very tall, her legs bare below a very short 
skirt from which streamed behind her a flutter of 
many-colored ribbons. 

She ran, with effortless ease, surefooted, with 
never a chance of spraining an ankle, over the dead 
leaves, among the flowers of early spring, lilies of 
the valley, violet anemones, or white narcissi. 

Her black hair, not very long, was divided into 
two heavy masses which flapped like two wings. Her 
smiling face, parted lips, dilated nostrils, her half- 
closed eyes proclaimed all her delight in her swift 
course through the fresh air of the morning. Her 
neck, long and flexible, rose from a blouse of gray 
linen, closed by a kerchief of orange silk. She 
looked to be fifteen or sixteen years old. 

The wood came to an end. A valley lay before 


12 


THE SECRET TOMB 


her, sunk between two walls of rock and turning off 
abruptly. Dorothy stopped short. She had reached 
her goal. 

Facing her, on a pedestal of granite, cleanly cut 
down, and not more than a hundred feet in diameter, 
rose the main building of a chateau, which though it 
lacked grandeur of style itself, yet drew from its 
position and the impressive nature of its construc¬ 
tion an air of being a seigniorial residence. To the 
right and left the valley, narrowed to two ravines, 
appeared to envelop it like an old-time moat. But in 
front of Dorothy the full breadth of the valley 
formed a slightly undulating glacis, strewn with 
boulders and traversed by hedges of briar, which 
ended at the foot of the almost vertical cliff of the 
granite pedestal.' 

“A quarter to five striking,” murmured the young 
girl. “Saint-Quentin won’t be long.” 

She crouched down behind the enormous trunk of 
an uprooted tree and watched with unwinking eyes 
the line of demarcation between the chateau itself 
and its rocky base. 

A narrow shelf of rock lengthened this line, run¬ 
ning below the windows of the ground floor; and 
there was a spot in this exiguous cornice at which 
there came to an end a slanting fissure in the face of 
the cliff, very narrow, something of the nature of a 
crevice in the face of a wall. 

The evening before, during their walk, Saint- 
Quentin had said, his finger pointing at the fissure: 

“Those people believe themselves to be perfectly 
secure; and yet nothing could be easier than to haul 
one’s self up along that crack to one of the windows. 


THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 13 

. . . Look; there’s one which is actually half-open 
. . . the window of some pantry.” 

Dorothy had no doubt whatever that the idea of 
climbing the granite pedestal had gripped Saint- 
Quentin and that that very night he had stolen away 
to attempt it. What had become of him after the 
attempt? Had there not been some one in the room 
he had entered? Knowing nothing of the place he 
was exploring nor of the dwellers in it, had he not 
let himself be taken? Or was he merely waiting for 
the break of day? 

She was greatly troubled. For all that she could 
see no sign of a path along the ravine, some country¬ 
man might come along at the very moment at which 
Saint-Quentin took the risk of making his descent, a 
far more difficult business than climbing up. 

Of a sudden she quivered. One might have said 
that in thinking of this mischance she had brought 
it on them. She heard the sound of heavy footfalls 
coming along the ravine and making for its main 
entrance. She buried herself among the roots of the 
tree and they hid her. A man came in sight. He 
was wearing a long blouse; his face was encircled 
and hidden by a gray muffler; old, furred gloves cov¬ 
ered his hands; he carried a gun on his arm, a mat¬ 
tock over his shoulder. 

She thought that he must be a sportsman, or 
rather a poacher, for he walked with an uneasy air, 
looking carefully about him, like one who feared to 
be seen, and who was carefully changing his usual 
bearing. But he came to a standstill near the wall 
fifty or sixty yards from the spot at which Saint- 
Quentin had made the ascent, and studied the 


i 4 THE SECRET TOMB 

ground, turning over some flat stones and bending 
down over them. 

At last he made up his mind and seizing one of 
these slabs by its narrower end, he raised it and set 
it up on end in such a manner that it was balanced 
after the fashion of a cromlech. So doing he un¬ 
covered a hole which had been hollowed out in the 
center of the deep imprint left by the slab. Then 
he took his mattock and set about enlarging it, re¬ 
moving the earth very quietly, evidently taking great 
care to make no noise. 

A few minutes more slipped away. Then the in¬ 
evitable event which Dorothy had at once desired 
and feared took place. The window of the chateau, 
through which Saint-Quentin had climbed the night 
before, opened; and there appeared a long body clad 
in a long black coat, its head covered with a high 
hat, which, even at that distance, were plainly shiny, 
dirty, and patched. 

Squeezed flat against the wall, Saint-Quentin low¬ 
ered himself from the window and succeeded in 
setting his two feet on the rocky shelf. On the 
instant Dorothy, who was at the back of the man in 
the blouse, was on the point of rising and making a 
warning signal to her comrade. The movement was 
useless. The man had perceived what looked to be 
a black devil clinging to the face of the cliff, and 
dropping his mattock, he slipped into the hole. 

For his part, Saint-Quentin, absorbed in his job of 
getting down, was paying no attention to what was 
going on below him, and could only have seen it by 
turning round, which was practically impossible. 
Uncoiling a rope, which he had, without doubt, 


THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 


U 

picked up in the mansion, he ran it round a pillar of 
the balcony of the window in such a fashion that the 
two ends hung down the face of the cliff an equal 
distance. With the help of this double rope the 
descent presented no difficulty. 

Without losing a second, Dorothy, uneasy at 
being no longer able to see the man in a blouse, 
sprang from her hiding-place and raced to the hole. 
As she got a view of it, she smothered a cry. At the 
bottom of the hole, as at the bottom of a trench, the 
man, resting the barrel of his gun on the rampart of 
earth he had thrown up, was about to take deliberate 
aim at the unconscious climber. 

Call out? Warn Saint-Quentin? That was to 
precipitate the event, to make her presence known 
and find herself engaged in an unequal struggle with 
an armed adversary. But do something she must. 
Up there Saint-Quentin was availing himself of the 
fissure in*the face of the cliff, for all the world as if 
he were descending the shaft of a chimney. The 
whole of him stuck out, a black and lean silhouette. 
His high hat had been crushed down, concertina 
fashion, right on to his ears. 

The man set the butt of his gun against his shoul¬ 
der and took aim. Dorothy leapt forward and 
flung herself at the stone which stood up behind him 
and with the impetus of her spring and all her weight 
behind her outstretched hands, shoved it. It was 
badly balanced, gave at the shock, and toppled over, 
closing the excavation like a trap-door of stone, 
crushing the gun, and imprisoning the man in the 
blouse. The young girl got just a glimpse of his 


16 


THE SECRET TOMB 


head as it bent and his shoulders as they were thrust 
down into the hole. 

She thought that the attack was only postponed, 
that the enemy would lose no time in getting out of 
his grave, and dashed at full speed to the bottom of 
the fissure at which she arrived at the same time as 
Saint-Quentin. 

“Quick . . . quick!” she cried. “We must bolt!” 

In a flurry, he dragged down the rope by one of 
the ends, mumbling as he did so: 

“What’s up? What d’you want? How did you 
know I was here ?” 

She gripped his arm and tugged at it. 

“Bolt, idiot! . . . They’ve seen you! . . . They 
were going to take a shot at you! . . . Quick! 
They’ll be after us!” 

“What’s that? Be after us? Who?” 

# 

“A queer-looking beggar disguised as a peasant. 
He’s in a hole over yonder. He was going to shoot 
you like a partridge when I tumbled the slab on to 
the top of-him.” 

“But-•” 

“Do as I tell you, idiot! And bring the rope with 
you. You mustn’t leave any traces!” 

She turned and bolted; he followed her. They 
reached the end of the valley before the slab was 
raised, and without exchanging a word took cover 
in the wood. 

Twenty minutes later they entered the stream and 
did not leave it till they could emerge on to a bank 
of pebbles on which their feet could leave no print. 

Saint-Quentin was off again like an arrow; but 



THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 17 

Dorothy stopped short, suddenly shaken by a spasm 
of laughter which bent her double. 

“What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter with 
you?” 

She could not answer. She was convulsed, her 
hands pressed against her ribs, her face scarlet, her 
teeth, small, regular, whitely-gleaming teeth, bared. 
At last she managed to stutter: 

“You—you—your high—high hat! . . . That 
b-b-black coat! . . . Your b-b-bare feet! . . . It’s 
t-t-too funny! . . . Where did you sneak that dis¬ 
guise from? . . . Goodness! What a sight you 
are!” 

Her laughter rang out, young and fresh, on the 
silence in which the leaves were fluttering. Facing 
her, Saint-Quentin, an awkward stripling who had 
outgrown -his strength, with his face too pale, his 
hair too fair, his ears sticking out, but with admir¬ 
able, very kindly black eyes, gazed, smiling, at the 
young girl, delighted by this diversion which seemed 
to be turning aside from him the outburst of wrath 
he was expecting. 

Of a sudden, indeed, she fell upon him, attacking 
him with thumps and reproaches, but in a half¬ 
hearted fashion, with'little bursts of laughter, which 
robbed the chastisement of its sting. 

“Wretch and rogue! You’ve been stealing again, 
have you? You’re no longer satisfied with your 
salary as acrobat, aren’t you, my fine fellow? You 
must still prig money or jewels to keep yourself in 
high hats, must you? What have you got, looter? 
Eh? Tell me!” 

By dint of striking and laughing she had soothed 


18 


THE SECRET TOMB 


her righteous indignation. She set out again and 
Saint-Quentin, thoroughly abashed, stammered: 

“Tell you? What’s the good of telling you? 
You’ve guessed everything, as usual. . ..Asa mat¬ 
ter of fact I did get in through that window, last 
evening. ... It was a pantry at the end of a corri¬ 
dor which led to the ground-floor rooms. . . . Not 
a soul about. . . . The family was at dinner. . . . 
A servant’s staircase led me up into another passage, 
which ran round the house, with the doors of all the 
rooms opening into it. I went through them all. 
Nothing—that is to say, pictures and other things 
too big to carry away. Then I hid myself in a closet, 
from which I could see into a little sittingroom next 
to the prettiest bedroom. They danced till late; 
then came upstairs . . . fashionable people. . . . 
I saw them through a peep-hole in the door . . . 
the ladies decolletees, the gentlemen in evening 
dress. ... At last one of the ladies went into the 
boudoir. She put her jewels into a jewel-box and 
the jewel-box into a small safe, saying out loud as 
she opened it the three letters of the combination of 
the lock, R.O.B. ... So that, when she went to 
bed, all I had to do was to make use of them. . . , 
After that ... I waited for daylight ... I 
wasn’t going to chance stumbling about in the dark.” 

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” she commanded. 

He opened his hand and disclosed on the palm of 
it two earrings, set with sapphires. She took them 
and looked at them. Her face changed; her eyes 
sparkled; she murmured in quite a different voice: 

“How lovely they are, sapphires! . . . The sky 



THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 19 

is sometimes like that—at night . . . that dark 
blue, full of light . . .” 

At the moment they were crossing a piece of land 
on which stood a large scarecrow, simply clad in a 
pair of trousers. On one of the cross-sticks which 
served it for arms hung a jacket. It was the jacket 
of Saint-Quentin. He had hung it there the evening 
before, and in order to render himself unrecogniz¬ 
able, had borrowed the scarecrow’s long coat and 
high hat. He took off that long coat, buttoned it 
over the plaster bosom of the scarecrow, and re¬ 
placed the hat. Then he slipped on his jacket and 
rejoined Dorothy. 

She was still looking at the sapphires with an air 
of admiration. 

He bent over them and said: “Keep them, 
Dorothy. You know quite well that I’m not really 
a thief and that I only got them for you . . . that 
you might have the pleasure of looking at them and 
touching them. ... It often goes to my heart to 
see you running about in that beggarly get-up! . . . 
To think of you dancing on the tight-rope! You 
who ought to live in luxury! . . . Ah, to think of 
all I’d do for you, if you’d let me !” 

She raised her head, looked into his eyes, and 
said : “Would you really do anything for me ?” 

“Anything, Dorothy.” 

“Well, then, be honest, Saint-Quentin.” 

They set out again; and the young girl continued: 

“Be honest, Saint-Quentin. That’s all I ask of 
you. You and the other boys of the caravan, I’ve 
adopted you because, like me, you’re war-orphans, 
and for the last two years we have wandered to- 


20 


THE SECRET TOMB 

gether along the high roads, happy rather than 
miserable, getting our fun, and on the whole, eating 
when we’re hungry. But we must come to an under¬ 
standing. I only like what is clean and straight and 
as clear as a ray of sunlight. Are you like me ? This 
is the third time you’ve stolen to give me pleasure. 
Is this the last time? If it is, I pardon it. If it 
isn’t, it’s ‘good-bye.’ ” 

She spoke very seriously, emphasizing each phrase 
by a toss of the head which made the two wings of 
her hair flap. 

Overwhelmed, Saint-Quentin said imploringly: 

“Don’t you want to have anything more to do 
with me?” 

“Yes. But swear you won’t do it again.” 

“I swear I won’t.” 

“Then we won’t say anything more about it. I 
feel that you mean what you say. Take back these 
jewels. You can hide them in the big basket under 
the caravan. Next week you will send them back by 
post. It’s the Chateau de Chagny, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, and I saw the lady’s name on one of her 
band-boxes. She’s the Comtesse de Chagny.” 

They went on hand in hand. ‘Twice they hid 
themselves to avoid meeting peasants, and at last, 
after several detours, they reached the neighbor¬ 
hood of the caravan. 

“Listen,” said Saint-Quentin, pausing to listen 
himself. “Yes. That’s what it is—Castor and 
Pollux fighting as usual, the rascals!” 

He dashed towards the sound. 

“Saint-Quentin I” cried the young girl. “I forbid 
you to hit them!” 


21 


THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 

“You hit them often enough!” 

“Yes. But they like me to hit them.” 

At the approach of Saint-Quentin, the two boys, 
who were fighting a duel with wooden swords, turned 
from one another to face the common enemy, 
howling: 

“Dorothy! Mummy Dorothy! Stop Saint- 

Quentin! He’s a beast! Help!” 

There followed a distribution of cuffs, bursts of 
laughter, and hugs. 

“Dorothy, it’s my turn to be hugged!” 

“Dorothy, it’s my turn to be smacked!” 

But the young girl said in a scolding voice: 

“And the Captain? I’m sure you’ve gone and 
woke him up!” 

“The Captain? He’s sleeping like a sapper,” 
declared Pollux. “Just listen to his snoring!” 

By the side of the road the two urchins had lit a 
fire of wood. The pot, suspended from an iron 
tripod, was boiling. The four of them ate a steam¬ 
ing thick soup, bread and cheese, and drank a cup 
of coffee. 

Dorothy did not budge from her stool. Her three 
companions would not have permitted it. It was 
rather which of the three should rise to serve her, 
all of them attentive to her wants, eager, jealous of 
one another, even aggressive towards one another. 
The battles of Castor and Pollux were always 
started by the fact that she had shown favor to one 
or the other. The two urchins, stout and chubby, 
dressed alike in pants, a shirt, and jacket, when one 
least expected it and for all that they were as fond 
of one another as brothers, fell upon one another 


22 


THE SECRET TOMB 


with ferocious violence, because the young girl had 
spoken too kindly to one, or delighted the other with 
a too affectionate look. 

As for Saint-Quentin, he cordially detested them. 
When Dorothy fondled them, he could have cheer¬ 
fully wrung their necks. Never would she hug him. 
He had to content himself with good comradeship, 
trusting and affectionate, which only showed itself in 
a friendly hand-shake or 'a pleasant smile. The 
stripling delighted in them as the only reward which 
a poor devil like him could possibly deserve. Saint- 
Quentin was one of those who love with selfless 
devotion. 

“The arithmetic lesson now,” was Dorothy’s 
order. “And you, Saint-Quentin, go to sleep for an 
hour on the box.” 

Castor brought his arithmetic. Pollux displayed 
his copy-book. The arithmetic lesson was followed 
by a lecture delivered by Dorothy on the Mero¬ 
vingian kings, then by a lecture on astronomy. 

The two children listened with almost impas¬ 
sioned attention; and Saint-Quentin on the box took 
good care not to go to sleep. In teaching, Dorothy 
gave full play to her lively fancy in a fashion which 
diverted her pupils and never allowed them to grow 
weary. She had an air of learning herself whatever 
she chanced to be teaching. And her discourse, de¬ 
livered in a very gentle voice, revealed i considerable 
knowledge and understanding and the suppleness of 
a practical intelligence. 

At ten o’clock the young girl gave thd order to 
harness the horse. The journey to the ftext town 


THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 23 

was a long one; and they had to arrive in time to 
secure the best place in front of the town-hall. 

“And the Captain? He hasn’t had breakfast 1 ” 
cried Castor. 

“All the better,” said she. “The Captain always 
eats too much. It will give his stomach a rest. Be¬ 
sides if any one wakes him he’s always in a fright¬ 
ful temper. Let him sleep on.” 

They set out. The caravan moved along at the 
gentle pace of One-eyed Magpie, a lean old mare, 
but still strong and willing. They called her “One- 
eyed Magpie” because she had a piebald coat and 
had lost an eye. Heavy, perched on two high wheels, 
rocking, jingling like old iron, loaded with boxes, 
pots and pans, steps, barrels, and ropes, the caravan 
had recently been repainted. On both sides it bore 
the pompous inscription, “Dorothy’s Circus, Man¬ 
ager’s Carriage,” which led one to believe that a 
file of wagons and vehicles was following at some 
distance with the staff,“the properties, the baggage, 
and the wild beasts. 

Saint-Quentin, whip in hand, walked at the head 
of the caravan. Dorothy, with the two small boys 
at her side, gathered flowers from the banks, sang 
choruses of marching songs with them, or told them 
stories. But at the end of half an hour, in the 
middle of some cross-roads, she gave the order: 
“Halt!” 

“What is it?” asked Saint-Quentin, seeing that 
she was reading the directions on a sign-post. 

“Look,” she said. 

“There’s no need to look. It’s straight on. I 
looked it up on our map.” 


24 THE SECRET TOMB 

“Look,” she repeated. “Chagny. A mile and a 
half.” 

“Quite so. It’s the village of our chateau of 
yesterday. Only to get to it we made a short cut 
through the woods.” 

“Chagny. A mile and a half. Chateau de Rob- 
orey.” 

She appeared to be troubled and in a low voice 
she murmured again: 

“Roborey—Roborey.” 

“Doubtless that’s the proper name of the 
chateau,” hazarded Saint-Quentin. “What differ¬ 
ence can it make to you?” 

“None—none.” 

“But you look as if it made no end of a differ¬ 
ence.” 

“No. It’s just a coincidence.” 

“In what way?” 

“With regard to the name of Roborey-” 

“Well?” 

“Well, it’s a word which was impressed on my 
memory ... a word which was uttered in circum¬ 
stances-” 

“What circumstances, Dorothy?” 

She explained slowly with a thoughtful air: 

“Think a minute, Saint-Quentin. I told you that 
my father died of his wounds, at the beginning of 
the war, in a hospital near Chartres. I had been 
summoned; but I did not arrive in time. . . . But 
two wounded men, who occupied the beds next to his 
in the ward, told me that during his last hours he 
never stopped repeating the same word again and 
again: ‘Roborey . . . Roborey.’ It came like a 




THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 25 

litany, unceasingly, and as if it weighed on his mind. 
Even when he was dying he still uttered the word: 
‘Roborey . . . Roborey.’ ” 

“Yes,” said Saint-Quentin. “I remember. . . . 
You did tell me about it.” 

“Ever since then I have been asking myself what 
it meant and by what memory my poor father was 
obsessed at the time of his death. It was, appar¬ 
ently, more than an obsession ... it was a terror 
. . . a dread. Why? I have never been able to 
find the explanation of it. So now you understand, 
Saint-Quentin, on seeing this name . . . written 
there, staring me in the face ... on learning that 
there was a chateau of that name . . .” 

Saint-Quentin was frightened: 

“You never mean to go there, do you?” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s madness, Dorothy!” 

The young girl was silent, considering. But Saint- 
Quentin felt sure that she had not abandoned this 
unprecedented design. He was seeking for argu¬ 
ments to dissuade her when Castor and Pollux came 
running up: 

“Three caravans are coming along!” 

They issued on the instant, one after the other 
in single file, from a sunken lane, which opened on 
to the cross-roads, and took the road to Roborey. 
They were an Aunt Sally, a Rifle-Range, and a 
Tortoise Merry-go-round. As he passed in front of 
Dorothy and Saint-Quentin, one of the men of the 
Rifle-Range called to them: 

“Are you coming along too?” 

“Where to?” said Dorothy. 


2 6 


THE SECRET TOMB 

“To the chateau. There’s a village fete in the 
grounds. Shall I keep a pitch for you ?” 

“Right. And thanks very much,” replied the 
young girl. 

The caravans went on their way. 

“What’s the matter, Saint-Quentin?” said 
Dorothy. 

He was looking paler than usual. 

“What’s the matter with you?” she repeated. 
“Your lips are twitching and you are turning green!” 

He stammered: 

“The p-p-police!” 

From the same sunken lane two horsemen came 
into the cross-roads, they rode on in front of the 
little party. 

“You see,” said Dorothy, smiling, “they’re not 
taking any notice of us.” 

“No; but they’re going to the chateau.” 

“Of course they are. There’s a fete there; and 
two policemen have to be present.” 

“Always supposing that they haven’t discovered 
the disappearance of the earrings and telephoned to 
the nearest police-station,” he groaned. 

“It isn’t likely. The lady will only discover it to¬ 
night, when she dresses for dinner.” 

“All the same, don’t let’s go there,” implored the 
unhappy stripling. “It’s simply walking into the 
trap. . . . Besides, there’s that man . . . the man 
in the hole.” 

“Oh, he dug his own grave,” she said and laughed. 

“Suppose he’s there. . . . Suppose he recognizes 
me?” 


THE CHATEAU DE ROBOREY 27 

“You were disguised. All they could do would be 
to arrest the scarecrow in the tall hat!” 

“And suppose they’ve already laid an information 
against me? If they searched us they’d find the 
earrings.” 

“Drop them in some bushes in the park when we 
get there. I’ll tell the people of the chateau their 
fortunes; and thanks to me, the lady will recover 
her earrings. Our fortunes are made.” 

“But if by any chance-” 

“Rubbish! It would amuse me to go and see 
w r hat is going on at the chateau which is named 
Roborey. So I’m going.” 

“Yes; but I’m afraid . * . afraid for you as 
well.” 

“Then stay away.” 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“We’ll chance it!” he said, and cracked his whip. 



CHAPTER II 


Dorothy’s circus 

The chateau, situated at no great distance from 
Domfront, in the most rugged district of the pic¬ 
turesque department of the Orne, only received the 
name of Roborey in the course of the eighteenth 
century. Earlier it took its name of the Chateau 
de Chagny from the village which was grouped 
round it. The village green is in fact only a pro¬ 
longation of the court-yard of the chateau. When 
the iron gates are open the two form an esplanade, 
constructed over the ancient moat, from which one 
descends on the right and left by steep slopes. The 
inner court-yard, circular and enclosed by two battle- 
mented walls which run to the buildings of the 
chateau, is adorned by a fine old fountain of dolphins 
and sirens and a sun-dial set up on a rockery in the 
worst taste. 

Dorothy’s Circus passed through the village, pre¬ 
ceded by its band, that is to say that Castor and 
Pollux did their best to wreck their lungs in the 
effort to extract the largest possible number of false 
notes from two trumpets. Saint-Quentin had arrayed 
himself in a black satin doublet and carried over his 
shoulder the trident which so awes wild beasts, and 
a placard which announced that the performance 
would take place at three o’clock. 

28 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


29 

Dorothy, standing upright on the roof of the 
caravan, directed One-eyed Magpie with four reins, 
wearing the majestic air of one driving a royal 
coach. 

Already a dozen vehicles stood on the esplanade; 
and round them the showmen were busily setting up 
their canvas tents and swings and wooden horses, 
etc. Dorothy’s Circus made no such preparations. 
Its directress went to the mayor’s office to have her 
license vised, while Saint-Quentin unharnessed One- 
eyed Magpie, and the two musicians changed their 
profession and set about cooking the dinner. 

The Captain slept on. 

Towards noon the crowd began to flock in from 
all the neighboring villages. After the meal Saint- 
Quentin, Castor, and Pollux took a siesta beside the 
caravan. Dorothy again went off. She went down 
into the ravine, examined the slab over the excava¬ 
tion, went up out of it again, moved among the 
groups of peasants and strolled about the gardens, 
round the chateau, and everywhere else that one was 
allowed to go. 

“Well, how’s your search getting on?” said Saint- 
Quentin when she returned to the caravan. 

She appeared thoughtful, and slowly she ex¬ 
plained : 

“The chateau, which has been empty for a long 
while, belongs to the family of Chagny-Roborey, of 
which the last representative, Count Octave, a man 
about forty, married, twelve years ago, a very rich 
woman. After the war the Count and Countess 
restored and modernized the chateau. Yesterday 
evening they had a house-warming to which they 


30 


THE SECRET TOMB 


invited a large party of guests who went away at 
the end of the evening. To-day they’re having a 
kind of popular house-warming for the villagers.” 

“And as regards this name of Roborey, have you 
learned anything?” 

“Nothing. I’m still quite ignorant why my father 
uttered it.” 

“So that we can get away directly after the per¬ 
formance,” said Saint-Quentin who was very eager 
to depart. 

“I don’t know. . . . We’ll see. . . . I’ve found 
out some rather queer things.” 

“Have they anything to do with your father?” 

“No,” she said with some hesitation. “Nothing 
to do with him. Nevertheless I should like to look 
more closely into the matter. When there is dark¬ 
ness anywhere, there’s no knowing what it may hide. 
. . . I should like . . 

She remained silent for a long time. At last she 
went on in a serious tone, looking straight into Saint- 
Quentin’s face: 

“Listen: you have confidence in me, haven’t you? 
You know that I’m quite sensible at bottom . . . 
and very prudent. You know that I have a certain 
amount of intuition . . . and good eyes that see a 
little more than most people see. . . . Well, I’ve 
got a strong feeling that I ought to remain here.” 

“Because of the name of Roborey?” 

“Because of that, and for other reasons, which 
will compel me perhaps, according to circumstances, 
to undertake unexpected enterprises . . . dangerous 
ones. At that moment, Saint-Quentin, you must 
follow me—boldly.” 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 3I 

“Go on, Dorothy. Tell me what it is exactly.” 

“Nothing. . . . Nothing definite at present. 
. . . One word, however. The man who was aim¬ 
ing at you this morning, the man in the blouse, is 
here.” 

“Never! He’s here, do you say? You’ve seen 
him? With the policemen?” 

She smiled. 

“Not yet. But that may happen. Where have 
you put those earrings?” 

“At the bottom of the basket, in a little card¬ 
board box with a rubber ring round it.” 

“Good. As soon as the performance is over, stick 
them in that clump of rhododendrons between the 
gates and the coach-house.” 

“Have they found out that they’ve disappeared?” 

“Not yet,” said Dorothy. “From the things you 
told me I believe that the little safe is in the boudoir 
of the Countess. I heard some of the maids talk¬ 
ing; and nothing was said about any robbery. 
They’d have been full of it.” She added: “Look! 
there are some of the people from the chateau in 
front of the shooting-gallery. Is it that pretty fair 
lady with the grand air?” 

“Yes. I recognize her.” 

“An extremely kind-hearted woman, according to 
what the maids said, and generous, always ready to 
listen to the unfortunate. The people about her are 
very fond of her . . . much fonder of her than they 
are of her husband, who, it appears, is not at all easy 
to get on with.” 

“Which of them is he? There are three mer 
there.” 


32 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“The biggest . . . the man in the gray suit . . . 
with his stomach sticking out with importance. 
Look; he has taken a rifle. The two on either side 
of the Countess are distant relations. The tall one 
with the grizzled beard which runs up to his tortoise¬ 
shell spectacles, has been at the chateau a month. 
The other more sallow one, in a velveteen shooting- 
coat and gaiters, arrived yesterday.” 

“But they look as if they knew you, both of 
them.” 

“Yes. We’ve already spoken to one another. 
The bearded nobleman was even quite attentive.” 

Saint-Quentin made an indignant movement. She 
checked him at once. 

“Keep calm, Saint-Quentin. And let’s go closer 
to them. The battle begins.” 

The crowd was thronging round the back of the 
tent to watch the exploits of the owner of the 
chateau, whose skill was well known. The dozen 
bullets which he fired made a ring round the center 
of the target; and there was a burst of applause. 

“No, no!” he protested modestly. “It’s bad. 
Not a single bull’s-eye.” 

“Want of practice,” said a voice near him. 

Dorothy had slipped into the front ranks of the 
throng; and she had said it in the quiet tone of a 
connoisseur. The spectators laughed. The bearded 
gentleman presented her to the Count and Countess. 

“Mademoiselle Dorothy, the directress of the 
circus.” 

“Is it as circus directress that mademoiselle judges 
a target or as an expert?” said the Count jocosely. 

“As an expert.” 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


33 


“Ah, mademoiselle also shoots?” 

“Now and then.” 

“Jaguars?” 

“No. Pipe-bowls.” 

“And mademoiselle does not miss her aim?” 

“Never.” 

“Provided, of course, that she has a first-class 
weapon ?” 

“Oh, no. A good shot can use any kind of 
weapon that comes to hand . . . even an old-fash¬ 
ioned contraption like this.” 

She gripped the butt of an old pistol, provided 
herself with six cartridges, and aimed at the card¬ 
board target cut out by the Count. 

The first shot was a bull’s-eye. The second cut 
the black circle. The third was a bull’s-eye. 

The Count was amazed. 

“It’s marvelous. . . . She doesn’t even take the 
trouble to aim. What do you say to that, 
d’Estreicher ?” 

The bearded nobleman, as Dorothy called him, 
cried enthusiastically: 

“Unheard of! Marvelous! You could make a 
fortune, Mademoiselle!” 

Without answering, with the three remaining 
bullets she broke two pipe-bowls and shattered an 
empty egg-shell that was dancing on the top of a 
jet of water. 

And thereupon, pushing aside her admirers, and 
addressing the astonished crowd, she made the 
announcement: 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to in¬ 
form you that the performance of Dorothy’s Circus 


34 THE SECRET TOMB 

is about to take place. After exhibitions of marks¬ 
manship, choregraphic displays, then feats of 
strength and skill and tumbling, on foot, on horse¬ 
back, on the earth and in the air. Fireworks, re¬ 
gattas, motor races, bull-fights, train hold-ups, all 
will be on view there. It is about to begin, ladies 
and gentlemen.” 

From that moment Dorothy was all movement, 
liveliness, and gayety. Saint-Quentin had marked 
off a sufficiently large circle, in front of the door of 
the caravan, with a rope supported by stakes. Round 
this arena, in which chairs were reserved for the 
people of the chateau, the spectators were closely 
packed together on benches and flights of steps and 
on anything they could lay their hands on. 

And Dorothy danced. First of all on a rope, 
stretched between two posts. She bounced like a 
shuttlecock which the battledore catches and drives 
yet higher; or again she lay down and balanced her¬ 
self on the rope as on a hammock, walked backwards 
and forwards, turned and saluted right and left; 
then leapt to the earth and began to dance. 

An extraordinary mixture of all the dances, in 
which nothing seemed studied or purposed, in which 
all the movements and attitudes appeared uncon¬ 
scious and to spring from a series of inspirations of 
the moment. By turns she was the London dancing- 
girl, the Spanish dancer with her castanets, the Rus¬ 
sian who bounds and twirls, or, in the arms of Saint- 
Quentin, a barbaric creature dancing a languorous 
tango. 

And every time all that she needed was just a 
movement, the slightest movement, which changed 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


35 

the hang of her shawl, or the way her hair was ar¬ 
ranged, to become from head to foot a Spanish, or 
Russian, or English, or Argentine girl. And all the 
while she was an incomparable vision of grace and 
charm, of harmonious and healthy youth, of pleasure 
and modesty, of extreme but measured joy. 

Castor and Pollux, bent over an old drum, beat 
with their fingers a muffled, rhythmical accompani¬ 
ment. Speechless and motionless the spectators 
gazed and admired, spellbound by such a wealth of 
fantasy and the multitude of images which passed 
before their eyes. At the very moment when they 
were regarding her as a guttersnipe turning cart¬ 
wheels, she suddenly appeared to them in the guise 
of a lady with a long train, flirting her fan and 
dancing the minuet. Was she a child or a woman? 
Was she under fifteen or over twenty? 

She cut short the clamor of applause which burst 
forth when she came to a sudden stop, by springing 
on to the roof of the caravan, and crying, with an 
imperious gesture: 

“Silence! The Captain is waking up!” 

There was, behind the box, a long narrow basket, 
in the shape of a closed sentry-box. Raising it by 
one end, she half opened the cover and cried: 

“Now, Captain Montfaucon, you’ve had a good 
sleep, haven’t you? Come now, Captain, we’re a 
bit behindhand with our exercises. Make up for it, 
Captain 1 ” 

She opened the top of the basket wide and dis¬ 
closed in a kind of cradle, very comfortable, a little 
boy of seven or eight, with golden curls and red 
cheeks, who yawned prodigiously. Only half awake, 


THE SECRET TOMB 


3^ 

he stretched out his hands to Dorothy who clasped 
him to her bosom and kissed him very tenderly. 

“Baron Saint-Quentin,” she called out. “Catch 
hold of the Captain. Is his bread and jam ready 2 
Captain Montfaucon will continue the performance 
by going through his drill.” 

Captain Montfaucon was the comedian of the 
troupe. Dressed in an old American uniform, his 
tunic dragged along the ground, and his corkscrew 
trousers had their bottoms rolled up as high as his 
knees. This made a costume so hampering that he 
could not walk ten steps without falling full length. 
Captain Montfaucon provided the comedy by this 
unbroken series of falls and the impressive air with 
which he picked himself up again. When, furnished 
with a whip, his other hand useless by reason of the 
slice of bread and jam it held, his cheeks smeared 
with jam, he put the unbridled One-eyed Magpie 
through his performance, there was one continuous 
roar of laughter. 

“Mark time!” he ordered. “Right-about-turn! 
. . . Attention, One-eye’Magpie !”—he could never 
be induced to say “One-eyed”—“And now the goose- 
step. Good, one-eye’ Magpie. . . . Perfect!” 

One-eyed Magpie, promoted to the rank of circus 
horse, trotted round in a circle without taking the 
slightest notice of the captain’s orders, who, for his 
part, stumbling, falling, picking himself up, recover¬ 
ing his slice of bread and jam, did not bother for a 
moment about whether he w T as obeyed or not. It 
was so funny, the phlegm of the little man, and the 
undeviating course of the beast, that Dorothy her¬ 
self was forced to laugh with a laughter that re- 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


37 

doubled the gayety of the spectators. They saw 
that the young girl, in spite of the fact that the per¬ 
formance was undoubtedly repeated every day, al¬ 
ways took the same delight in it. 

“Excellent, Captain,” she cried to encourage him. 
“Splendid! And now, captain, we’ll act ‘The Gipsy’s 
Kidnaping,’ a drama in a brace of shakes. Baron 
Saint-Quentin, you’ll be the scoundrelly kidnaper.” 

Uttering frightful howls, the scoundrelly kid¬ 
naper seized her and set her on One-eyed Magpie, 
bound her on her, and jumped up behind her. Under 
the double burden the mare staggered slowly off, 
while Baron Saint-Quentin yelled: 

“Gallop! Hell for leather!” 

The Captain quietly put a cap on a toy gun and 
aimed at the scoundrelly kidnaper. 

The cap cracked; Saint-Quentin fell off; and in a 
transport of gratitude the rescued gypsy covered 
her deliverer with kisses. 

There were other scenes in which Castor and 
Pollux took part. All were carried through with 
the same brisk liveliness. All were caricatures, really 
humorous, of what diverts or cEarms us, and re¬ 
vealed a lively imagination, powers of observation 
of the first order, a keen sense of the picturesque 
and the ridiculous. 

“Captain Montfaucon, take a bag and make a 
collection. Castor and Pollux, a roll of the drum 
to imitate the sound of falling water. Baron Saint- 
Quentin, beware of pickpockets!” 

The Captain dragged through the crowd an enor¬ 
mous bag in which were engulfed pennies and dirty 


THE SECRET TOMB 


38 

notes; and from the top of the caravan Dorothy 
delivered her farewell address: 

“Very many thanks, agriculturists and towns¬ 
people ! It is with regret that we leave this generous 
locality. But before we depart we take this oppor¬ 
tunity of informing you that Mademoiselle Dorothy 
(she saluted) is not only the directress of a circus 
and a first-class performer. Mademoiselle Dorothy 
(she saluted) will also demonstrate her extraor¬ 
dinary excellence in the sphere of clairvoyance and 
psychic powers. The lines of the hand, the cards, 
coffee grounds, handwriting, and astrology have no 
secrets for her. She dissipates the darkness. She 
solves enigmas. With her magic ring she makes in¬ 
visible springs burst forth, and above all, she dis¬ 
covers in the most unfathomable places, under the 
stones of old castles, and in the depths of forgotten 
dungeons, fantastic treasures whose existence no one 
suspected. A word to the wise is enough. I have 
the honor to thank you.” 

She descended quickly. The three boys were 
packing up the properties. 

Saint-Quentin came to her. 

“We hook it, don’t w 7 e, straight away? Those 
policemen have kept an eye on me the whole time.” 

She replied: 

“Then you didn’t hear the end of my speech?” 

“What about it?” 

“What about it? Why, the consultations are 
going to begin—the superlucid clairvoyant Dorothy. 
Look! here come some clients . . . the bearded 
nobleman and the gentleman in velveteen ... I 
like the gentleman in velveteen. He is very polite; 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


39 

and there’s no side about his fawn-colored gaiters— 
the complete gentleman-farmer.” 

The bearded nobleman was beside himself. He 
loaded the young girl with extravagant compliments, 
looking at her the while in an uncommonly equivocal 
fashion. He introduced himself as “Maxime 
d’Estreicher,” introduced his companion as “Raoul 
Davernoie,” and finally, on behalf of the Countess 
Octave, invited her to come to tea in the chateau. 

“Alone?” she asked. 

“Certainly not,” protested Raoul Davernoie with 
a courteous bow. “Our cousin is anxious to con¬ 
gratulate all your comrades. Will you come, 
mademoiselle?” 

Dorothy accepted. Just a moment to change her 
frock, and she would come to the chateau. 

“No, no; no toilet!” cried d’Estreicher. “Come 
as you are. . . . You look perfectly charming in 
that slightly scanty costume. How pretty you are 
like that!” 

Dorothy flushed and said dryly: 

“No compliments, please.” 

“It isn’t a compliment, mademoiselle,” he said a 
trifle ironically. “It’s the natural homage one pays 
to beauty.” 

He went off, taking Raoul Davernoie with him. 

“Saint-Quentin,” murmured Dorothy, looking 
after them. “Keep an eye on that gentleman.” 

“Why?” 

“He’s the man in the blouse who nearly brought 
you down this morning.” 

Saint-Quentin staggered as if he had received the 
charge of shot. 


40 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Are you sure?” 

“Very nearly. He has the same way of walking, 
dragging his right leg a little.” 

He muttered: 

“He has recognized me!” 

“I think so. When he saw you jumping about 
during the performance it recalled to his mind the 
black devil performing acrobatic feats against the 
face of the cliff. And it was only a step from you 
to me who shoved the slab over on to his head. I 
read it all in his eyes and his attitude towards me 
this afternoon—just in his manner of speaking to 
me. There was a touch of mockery in it.” 

Saint-Quentin lost his temper: 

“And we aren’t hurrying off at once! You dare 
stay?” 

“I dare.” 

“But that man?” 

“He doesn’t know that I penetrated his disguise. 
. . . And as long as he doesn’t know-” 

“You mean that your intention is?” 

“Perfectly simple—to tell them their fortunes, 
amuse them, and puzzle them.” 

“But what’s your object?” 

“I want to make them talk in their turn.” 

“What about?” 

“What I want to know.” 

“What do you want to know?” 

“That’s what I don’t know. It’s for them to 
teach me.” 

“And suppose they discover the robbery? Suppose 
they cross-examine us?” 

“Saint-Quentin, take the Captain’s wooden gun, 



DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 41 

mount guard in front of the caravan, and when the 
policemen approach, shoot them down.” 

When she had made herself tidy, she took Saint- 
Quentin with her to the chateau and on the way 
made him repeat all the details of his nocturnal ex¬ 
pedition. Behind them came Castor and Pollux, 
then the Captain, who dragged after him by a string 
a little toy cart loaded with tiny packages. 

They entertained them in the large drawingroom 
of the chateau. The Countess, who indeed was, as 
Dorothy had said, an agreeable and amiable woman, 
and of a seductive prettiness, stuffed the children 
with dainties, and was wholly charming to the young 
girl. For her part, Dorothy seemed quite as much 
at her ease with her hosts as she had been on the 
top of the caravan. She had merely hidden her 
short skirt and bodice under a large black shawl, 
drawn in at the waist by a belt. The ease of her 
manner, her cultivated intonation, her correct 
speech, to which now and then a slang word gave a 
certain spiciness, her quickness, and the intelligent 
expression of her brilliant eyes amazed the Countess 
and charmed the three men. 

“Mademoiselle,” d’Estreicher exclaimed, “if you 
can foretell the future, I can assure you that I too 
can clearly foresee it, and that certain fortune awaits 
you. Ah, if you would put yourself in my hands 
and let me direct your career in Paris! I am in 
touch with all the worlds and I can guarantee your 
success.” 

She tossed her head: 

“I don’t need any one.” 


42 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Mademoiselle,” said he, “confess that you do 
not find me congenial.” 

“Neither congenial nor uncongenial. I don’t 
really know you.” 

“If you really knew me, you’d have confidence in 
me. 

“I don’t think so,” she said. 

“Why?” 

She took his hand, turned it over, bent over the 
open palm, and as she examined it said slowly: 

“Dissipation. . . . Greedy for money. . . . 
Conscienceless . . .” 

“But I protest, mademoiselle! Conscienceless? 
I? I who am full of scruples.” 

“Your hand says the opposite, monsieur.” 

“Does it also say that I have no luck?” 

“None at all.” 

“What? Shan’t I ever be rich?” 

“I fear not.” 

“Confound it. . . . And what about my death? 
Is it a long way off?” 

“Not very.” 

“A painful death?” 

“A matter of seconds.” 

“An accident, then?” 

“Yes.” 

“What kind of accident?” 

She pointed with her finger: 

“Look here—at the base of the fore-finger.” 
“What is there?” 

“The gallows.” 

There was an outburst of laughter. D’Estreicher 
was enchanted. Count Octave clapped his hands. 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


43 

“Bravo, mademoiselle, the gallows for this old 
libertine; it must be that you have the gift of second 
sight. So I shall not hesitate . . 

He consulted his wife with a look of inquiry and 
continued: 

“So I shall not hesitate to tell you . . .” 

“To tell me,” finished Dorothy mischievously, 
“the reasons for which you invited me to tea.” 

The Count protested: 

“Not at all, mademoiselle. We invited you to tea 
solely for the pleasure of becoming acquainted with 
you.” 

“And perhaps a little from the desire to appeal to 
my skill as a sorceress.” 

The Countess Octave interposed: 

“Ah, well, yes, mademoiselle. Your final an¬ 
nouncement excited our curiosity. Moreover, I will 
confess that we haven’t much belief in things of this 
kind and that it is rather out of curiosity that we 
should like to ask you certain questions.” 

“If you have no faith in my poor skill, madame, 
we’ll let that pass, and all the same I’ll manage to 
gratify your curiosity.” 

“By what means ?” 

“Merely by reflecting on your words.” 

“What?” said the Countess. “No magnetic 
passes? No hypnotic sleep?” 

“No, madame—at least not for the present. 
Later on we’ll see.” 

Only keeping Saint-Quentin with her, she told the 
children to go and play in the garden. Then she sat 
down and said: 

“I’m listening, madame.” 


44 


THE SECRET TOMB 

“Just like that? Perfectly simply?” 

“Perfectly simply.” 

“Well, then, mademoiselle-” 

The Countess spoke in a tone the carelessness of 
which was not perhaps absolutely sincere. 

“Well, then, mademoiselle, you spoke of forgot¬ 
ten dungeons and ancient stones and hidden treas¬ 
ures. Now, the Chateau de Roborey is several 
centuries old. It has undoubtedly been the scene 
of adventures and dramas; and it w r ould amuse us 
to know whether any of its inhabitants have by any 
chance left in some out-of-way corner one of these 
fabulous treasures of which you spoke.” 

Dorothy kept silent for some little time. Then 
she said: 

“I always answer with all the greater precision if 
full confidence is placed in me. If there are any 
reservations, if the question is not put as it ought 
to be . . .” 

“What reservations? I assure you, mademoi¬ 
selle-•” 

The young girl broke in firmly; 

“You asked me the question, madame, as if you 
were giving way to a sudden curiosity, which did not 
rest, so to speak, on any real base. Now you know 
as well as I do that excavations have been made in 
the chateau.” 

“That’s very possible,” said Count Octave. “But 
if they were, it must have been dozens of years ago, 
in the time of my father or grandfather.” 

“There are recent excavations,” Dorothy as¬ 
serted. 




DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 45 

“But we have only been living in the chateau a 
month!” 

“It isn’t a matter of a month, but of some days 
... of some hours . . .” 

The Countess declared with animation: 

“I assure you, mademoiselle, that we have not 
made researches of any kind.” 

“Then the researches must have been made by 
some one else.” 

“By whom? And under what conditions? And 
in what spot?” 

There was another silence. Then Dorothy went 
on: 

“You will excuse me, madame, if I have been 
going into matters which do not seem to be any 
business of mine. It’s one of my faults. Saint- 
Quentin often says to me: ‘Your craze for tres¬ 
passing and ferreting about everywhere will lead 
people to say unpleasant things about you.’ But it 
happened that, on arriving here, since we had to wait 
for the hour of the performance, I took a walk. I 
wandered right and left, looking at things, and in 
the end I made a certain number of observations 
which, as it seemed to me, are of some importance. 
Thus . . .” 

The Count and Countess drew nearer in their 
eagerness to hear her. She went on : 

“Thus, while I was admiring the beautiful old 
fountain in the court of honor, I was able to make 
sure that, all round it, holes have been dug under 
the marble basin which catches the water. Was the 
exploration profitable? I do not know. In any 
case, the earth has been put back into its place care- 


THE SECRET TOMB 


4 6 

fully, but not so well that one cannot see that the 
surface of the soil is raised.” 

The Count and his guests looked at one another 
in astonishment. 

One of them objected: 

“Perhaps they’ve been repairing the basin . . , 
or been putting in a waste pipe?” 

“No,” said the Countess in a tone of decision. 
“No one has touched that fountain. And, doubt¬ 
less, mademoiselle, you discovered other traces of 
the same kind of work.” 

“Yes,” said Dorothy. “Some one has been doing 
the same thing a little distance away—under the 
rockery, the pedestal on which the sun-dial stands. 
They have been boring across that rockery. An iron 
rod has been broken. It's there still.” 

“But why?” cried the excited Countess. “Why 
these two spots rather than others? What are they 
searching for ? What do they want ? Have you any 
indication?” 

They had not long to wait for her answer; and 
Dorothy delivered it slowly, as if to make it quite 
clear that here was the essential point of her 
inquiry: 

“The motive of these investigations is engraved 
on the marble of the fountain. You can see it from 
here? Sirens surround a column surmounted by a 
capital. Isn’t it so? Well, on one of the faces of 
the capital are some letters—almost effaced letters.” 

“But we’ve never noticed them!” cried the 
Countess. 

“They are there,” declared the young girl. “They 
are worn and hard to distinguish from the cracks in 


DOROTHY’S CIRCUS 


47 


the marble. However, there is one word—a whole 
word—that one can reconstruct and read easily 
when once it has appeared to you.” 

“What word?” 

“The word fortuna.” 

The three syllables came long-drawn-out in a 
silence of stupefaction. The Count repeated them 
in a hushed voice, staring at Dorothy, who went on: 

“Yes; the word FORTUNA. And this word you 
find again also on the column of the sun-dial. Even 
yet more obliterated, to such a degree that one 
rather divines that it is there rather than actually 
reads it. But it certainly is there. Each letter is in 
its place. You cannot doubt it.” 

The Count had not waited for her to finish speak¬ 
ing. Already he was out of the house; and through 
the open windows they saw him hurry to the foun¬ 
tain. He cast but one glance at it, passed in front of 
the sun-dial, and came quickly back. 

“Everything that mademoiselle says is the exact 
truth. They have dug at both spots . . . and the 
word FORTUNA, which I saw at once, and which I 
had never seen before, gives the reason for their 
digging. . . . They have searched . . . and per¬ 
haps they have found.” 

“No,” the young girl asserted calmly. 

“Why do you say no? What do you know about 
it?” 

She hesitated. Her eyes met the eyes of d’Est- 
reicher. He knew now, doubtless, that he was un¬ 
masked, and he began to understand what the young 
girl was driving at. But would she dare to go to 


THE SECRET TOMB 


48 

extremities and join battle? And then what were 
the reasons for this unforeseen struggle? 

With an air of challenge he repeated the 
Countess’s question: 

“Yes; why do you say that they have found 
nothing?” 

Boldly Dorothy accepted the challenge. 

“Because the digging has gone on. There is in 
the ravine, under the walls of the chateau, among 
the stones which have fallen from the cliff, an ancient 
slab, which certainly comes from some demolished 
structure. The word fortuna is to be deciphered 
on the base of it also. Let some one move that slab 
and they will discover a perfectly fresh excavation, 
and the tracks of feet muddled up by the hand.” 


CHAPTER III 


EXTRA-LUCID 

This last blow redoubled the uneasiness of the 
Count and Countess; and they took counsel in a low 
voice for a moment with their cousins d’Estreicher 
and Raoul Davernoie. 

Saint-Quentin on hearing Dorothy reveal the 
events in the ravine and the hiding-place of the man 
in the blouse had fallen back among the cushions of 
the great easy chair on which he was sitting. She 
was going mad! To set them on the trail of the 
man in the blouse was to set them on their own 
trail, his and Dorothy’s. What madness! 

She, however, in the midst of all this excitement 
and anxiety remained wholly calm. She appeared 
to be following a quite definite course with her goal 
clearly in view, while the others, without her guid¬ 
ance, stumbled in a panic. 

“Mademoiselle,” said the Countess, “your revela¬ 
tions have upset us considerably. They show how 
extraordinarily acute you are; and I cannot thank you 
enough for having given us this warning.” 

“You have treated me so kindly, madame,” she 
replied, “that I am only too delighted to have been 
of use to you.” 

“Of immense use to us,” agreed the Countess. 
“And I beg you to make the service complete.” 

49 


50 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“How?” 

“By telling us what you know.” 

“I don’t know any more.” 

“But perhaps you could learn more?” 

“In what way?” 

The Countess smiled: 

“By means of that skill in divination of which you 
were telling us a little while ago.” 

“And in which you do not believe, madame.” 

“But in which I’m quite ready to believe now.” 

Dorothy bowed. 

“I’m quite willing. . . . But these are experi¬ 
ments which are not always successful.” 

“Let’s try.” 

“Right. We’ll try. But I must ask you not to 
expect too much.” 

She took a handkerchief from Saint-Quentin’s 
pocket and bandaged her eyes with it. 

“Astral vision, on condition of being blind,” she 
said. “The less I see the more I see.” 

And she added gravely: 

“Put your questions, madame. I will answer 
them to the best of my ability.” 

“Remaining in a state of wakefulness all the* 
time?” 

“Yes.” 

She rested her two elbows on the table and buried 
her face in her hands. The Countess at once said: 

“Who has been digging? Who has been making 
excavations under the fountain and under the 
sun-dial ?” 

A minute passed slowly. They had the impres¬ 
sion she was concentrating and withdrawing from 


EXTRA-LUCID 


5i 

all contact with the world around her. At last she 
said in measured tones which bore no resemblance to 
the accents of a pythoness or a somnambulist. 

“I see nothing on the esplanade. In that quar¬ 
ter the excavations must already be several days 
old, and all traces are obliterated. But in the 
ravine-” 

“In the ravine?” said the Countess. 

“The slab is standing on end and a man is digging 
a hole with a mattock.” 

“A man? What man? Describe him.” 

“He is wearing a very long blouse.” 

“But his face?” . . . 

“His face is encircled by a muffler which passes 
under a cap with turned-down brim . . . You can¬ 
not even see his eyes. When he has finished digging 
he lets the slab fall back into its place and carries 
away the mattock.” 

“Nothing else?” 

“No. He has found nothing.” 

“Are you sure of that?” 

“Absolutely sure.” 

“And which way does he go?” 

“He goes back up the ravine. . . . He comes to 
the iron gates of the chateau.” 

“But they’re locked.” 

“He has the key. He enters. ... It is early in 
the morning. . . . No one is up. . . . He directs 
his steps to the orangerie. . . . There’s a small 
room there.” 

“Yes. The gardener keeps his implements in it.” 

“The man sets the mattock in a corner, takes off 
his blouse and hangs it on a nail in the wall.” 



THE SECRET TOMB 


52 

“But he can’t be the gardener!” exclaimed the 
Countess. “His face? Can you see his face?” 

“No . . . no. ... It remains covered up.” 

“But his clothes?” 

“His clothes? ... I can’t make them out. . . . 
He goes out. . . . He disappears.” 

The young girl broke off as if her attention were 
fixed on some one whose outline was blurred and lost 
in the shadow like a phantom. 

“I do not see him any longer,” she said. “I can 
see nothing any longer . . . Do I? . . . Ah yes, 
the steps of the chateau. . . . The door is shut 
quietly. . . . And then . . . then the staircase. 
. . . A long corridor dimly lighted by small windows. 
. . . However I can distinguish some prints . . . 
galloping horses . . . sportsmen in red coats. . . . 
Ah! The man! . . . The man is there, on his 
knees, before a door. . . . He turns the handle of 
the door. ... It opens.” 

“It must be one of the servants,” said the Coun¬ 
tess in a hollow voice. “And it must be a room on 
the first floor, since there are prints on the passage 
walls. What is the room like?” 

“The shutters are closed. The man has lit a 
pocket-lamp and is hunting about. . . . There’s a 
calendar on the chimney-piece. . . . It's to-day, 
Wednesday. . . . And an Empire clock with gilded 
columns.” . . . 

“The clock in my boudoir,” murmured the 
Countess. 

“The hands point to a quarter of six. . . . The 
light of the lamp is directed to the other side of the 


EXTRA-LUCID 


53 

room, on to a walnut cupboard with two doors. The 
man opens the tw T o doors and reveals a safe.” 

They were listening to Dorothy in a troubled si¬ 
lence, their faces twitching with emotion. How 
could any one have failed to believe the whole of the 
vision the young girl was describing, seeing that she 
had never been over the chateau, never crossed the 
threshold of this boudoir, and that nevertheless she 
was describing things which must have been unknown 
to her. 

Dumfounded, the Countess exclaimed: 

“The safe was unlocked! . . . I’m certain of it 
... I shut it after putting my jewels away ... I 
can still hear the sound of the door banging!” 

“Shut—yes. But the key there.” 

“What does that matter? I have muddled up 
the letters of the combination.” 

“Not so. The key turns.” 

“Impossible!” 

“The key turns. I see the three letters.” 

“The three letters ! You see them!” 

“Clearly—an R, an O, and a B, that is to say 
the first three letters of the word Roborey. The 
safe is open. There’s a jewel-case inside it. The 
man’s hand gropes in it . . . and takes ...” 

“What? What? What has he taken?” 

“Two earrings.” 

“Two sapphires, aren’t they? Two sapphires?” 

“Yes, madame, two sapphires.” 

Thoroughly upset and moving jerkily, the Coun¬ 
tess went quickly out of the room, followed by her 
husband, and Raoul Davernoie. And Dorothy 
heard the Count say: 


54 THE SECRET TOMB 

“If this is true, you’ll admit, Davernoie, that this 
instance of divination would be uncommonly 
strange.” 

“Uncommonly strange indeed,” replied d’Es- 
treicher who had gone as far as the door with 
them. 

He shut the door on them and came back to the 
middle of the drawingroom with the manifest in¬ 
tention of speaking to the young girl. 

Dorothy had removed the handkerchief from her 
eyes and was rubbing them like a person who ha? 
come out of the dark. The bearded nobleman and 
she looked at one another for a few moments. 
Then, after some hesitation, he took a couple of 
steps back towards the door. But once more htf 
changed his mind and turning towards Dorothy, 
stroked his beard at length, and at last broke into 
a quiet, delighted chuckle. 

Dorothy, who was never behindhand w T hen it 
came to laughing, did as the bearded nobleman had 
done. 

“You laugh?” said he. 

“I laugh because you laugh. But I am ignorant 
of the reason of your gayety. May I learn it?” 

“Certainly, mademoiselle. I laugh because I 
find all that very amusing.” 

“What is very amusing?” 

D’Estreicher came a few steps further into the 
room and replied: 

“What is very amusing is to mix up into one and 
the same person the individual who was making an 
excavation under the slab of stone and this other 


EXTRA-LUCID 


55 

individual who broke into the chateau last night and 
stole the jewels.” 

“That is to say?” asked the young girl. 

“That is to say, to be yet more precise, the idea 
of throwing beforehand the burden of robbery com¬ 
mitted by M. Saint-Quentin-” 

“Onto the back of M. d’Estreicher,” said Doro¬ 
thy, ending his sentence for him. 

The bearded nobleman made a wry face, but did 
not protest. He bowed and said: 

“That’s it, exactly. We may just as well play 
with our cards on,the table, mayn’t we? We’re 
neither of us people who have eyes for the purpose 
of not seeing. And if I saw a black silhouette slip 
out of a window last night. You, for your part, 
have seen-” 

“A gentleman who received a stone slab on his 
head.” 

“Exactly. And I repeat, it’s very ingenious of 
you to try to make them out to be one and the same 
person. Very ingenious . . . and very dangerous.” 

“In what way is it dangerous?” 

“In the sense that every attack provokes a 
counter-attack.” 

“I haven’t made any attack. But I wished to 
make it quite clear that I was ready to go to any 
lengths.” 

“Even to the length of attributing the theft of 
this pair of earrings to me ?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“Oh! Then I’d better lose no time proving that 
they’re in your hands.” 

“Be quick about it.” 




56 THE SECRET TOMB 

Once more he stopped short on the threshold of 
the door and said: 

“Then we’re enemies?” 

“We’re enemies.” 

“Why? You’re quite unacquainted with me.” 

“I don’t need to be acquainted with you to know 
who you are.” 

“What? Who I am? I’m the Chevalier Maxime 
d’Estreicher.” 

“Possibly. But you’re also the gentleman who, 
secretly and without his cousins’ knowledge, seeks 
. . . that which he has no right to seek. With 
what object if not to steal it?” 

“And that’s your business?” 

“Yes.” 

“On what grounds?” 

“It won’t be long before you learn.” 

He made a movement—of anger or contempt? 
He controlled himself and mumbled: 

“All the worse for you and all the worse for 
Saint-Quentin. Good-bye for the present.” 

Without another word he bowed and went out. 

It was an odd fact, but in this kind of brutal and 
violent duel, Dorothy had kept so cool that hardly 
had the door closed before, following her instincts of 
a street Arab, she indulged in a high kick and pirou¬ 
etted half across the room. Then, satisfied with 
herself and the way things were going, she opened 
a glass-case, took from it a bottle of smelling-salts, 
and went to Saint-Quentin who was lying back in 
his easy chair. 

“Smell it, old chap.” 

He sniffed it, began to sneeze, and stuttered: 


EXTRA-LUCID 


57 



“We’re lost!” 

“You’re a fine fellow, Saint-Quentin! Why do 
you think we’re lost?” 

“He’s off to denounce us.” 

“Undoubtedly he’s off to buck up the inquiries 
about us. But as for denouncing us, for telling what 
he saw this morning, he daren’t do it. If he does, 
I tell in my turn what I saw.” 

“All the same, Dorothy, there was no point in 
telling them of the disappearance of the jewels.” 

“They were bound to discover it sooner or later. 
The fact of having been the first to speak of it 
diverts suspicion.” 

“Or turns it on to us, Dorothy.” 

“In that case I accuse the bearded nobleman.” 

“You need proofs.” 

“I shall find them.” 

“How you do detest him!” 

“No: but I wish to destroy him. He’s a danger¬ 
ous man, Saint-Quentin. I have an intuition of it; 
and you know that I hardly ever deceive myself. 
He has all the vices. He is betraying his cousins, 
the Count and Countess. He is capable of any¬ 
thing. I wish to rid them of him by any means.” 

Saint-Quentin strove to reassure himself: 

“You’re amazing. You make combinations and 
calculations; you act; you foresee. One feels that 
you direct your course in accordance with a plan.” 

“In accordance with nothing at all, my lad. I go 
forward at a venture, and decide as Fortune bids.” 

“However ...” 

“I have a definite aim, that’s all. Four people 
confront me, who, there’s no doubt about it, are 


THE SECRET TOMB 


58 

linked together by a common secret. Now the word 
‘Roborey,’ uttered by my father when he was dying, 
gives me the right to try to find out whether he 
himself did not form part of this group, and if, in 
consequence, his daughter is not qualified to take 
his place. Up to now the four people hold together 
and keep me at a distance. I have vainly attempted 
the impossible to obtain their confidence in the first 
place and after it their confessions, so far without 
any result. But I shall succeed.” 

She stamped her foot, with an abruptness in which 
was suddenly manifest all the energy and decision 
which animated this smiling and delicate creature, 
and she said again: 

“I sh^ll succeed, Saint-Quentin. I swear it. I 
am not at the end of my revelations. There is an¬ 
other which will persuade them perhaps to be more 
1 open with me.” 

“What is it, Dorothy?” 

“I know what I’m doing, my lad.” 
k She was silent. She gazed through the open 
window near which Castor and Pollux were fighting. 
The noise of hurrying footsteps reechoed about the 
chateau. People were calling out to one another. 
A servant ran across the court at full speed and 
shut the gates, leaving a small part of the crowd 
and three or four caravans, of which one was 
Dorothy’s Circus, in the court-yard. 

“The p - p - policemen ! The p - p - policemen !” 
stammered Saint - Quinten. “There they are! 
They’re examining the Rifle-Range!” 

“And. d’Estreicher is with them,” observed the 
young girl. 


EXTRA-LUCID 


59 


“Oh, Dorothy, what have you done?” 

“It’s all the same to me,” she said, wholly un¬ 
moved. “These people have a secret which perhaps 
belongs to me as much as to them. I wish to know 
it. Excitement, sensations, all that works in my 
favor.” 

“Nevertheless ...” 

“Pipe, Saint-Quentin. To-day decides my future. 
Instead of trembling, rejoice ... a fox-trot, old 
chap!” 

She threw an arm round his waist, and propping 
him up like a tailor’s dummy with wobbly legs, she 
forced him to turn; climbing in at the window, 
Castor and Pollux, followed by Captain Montfau- 
con, started to dance round the couple, chanting the 
air of the Capucine, first in the drawingroom, then 
across the large hall. But a fresh failure of Saint- 
Quentin’s legs dashed the spirits of the dancers. 

Dorothy lost her temper. 

“What’s the matter with you now?” she cried, 
trying to raise him and keep him upright. 

He stuttered: 

“I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid.” 

“But why on earth are you afraid? I’ve never 
seen you in such a funk. What are you afraid of?” 

“The jewels.” . . . 

“Idiot! But you’ve thrown them into the 
clump!” j 
“No.” 

“You haven’t?” 

“No.” 

“But w r here are they then?” 

“I don’t know. I looked for them in the basket 


6 o 


THE SECRET TOMB 


as you told me to. They weren’t there any longer. 
The little card-board box had disappeared.” 

During his explanation Dorothy grew graver and 
graver. The danger suddenly grew clear to her. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about it? I should not 
have acted as I did.” 

“I didn’t dare to. I didn’t want to worry you.” 

“Ah, Saint-Quentin, you were wrong, my lad.” 

She uttered no other reproach, but added: 

“What’s your explanation?” 

“I suppose I made a mistake and didn’t put the 
earrings in the basket . . . but somewhere else 
. . . in some other part of the caravan. . . . I’ve 
looked everywhere without finding them. . . . But 
those policemen—they’ll find them.” 

The young girl was overwhelmed. The earrings 
discovered in her possession, the theft duly verified 
meant arrest and jail. 

“Leave me to my fate,” groaned Saint-Quentin. 
“I’m nothing but an imbecile. ... A criminal. 
. . . Don’t try to save me . . . Throw all the blame 
on me, since it is the truth.” 

At that moment a police-inspector in uniform ap¬ 
peared on the threshold of the hall, under the guid¬ 
ance of one of the servants. 

“Not a word,” murmured Dorothy. “I forbid 
you to utter a single word.” 

The inspector came forward: 

“Mademoiselle Dorothy?” 

“I’m Mademoiselle Dorothy, inspector. What 
is it you want?” 

“Follow me. It will be necessary ...” 

He was interrupted by the entrance of the 


EXTRA-LUCID 61 

Countess who hurried in, accompanied by her hus¬ 
band and Raoul Davernoie. 

“No, no, inspector!” she exclaimed. “I abso¬ 
lutely oppose anything which might appear to show 
a lack of trust in mademoiselle. There is some 
misunderstanding.” 

Raoul Davernoie also protested. But Count 
Octave observed: 

“Bear in mind, dear, that this is merely a formal¬ 
ity, a general measure which the inspector is bound 
to take. A robbery has been committed, it is only 
right that the inquiry should include every¬ 
body-” 

“But it was mademoiselle who informed of the 
robbery,” interrupted the Countess. “It is she who 
for the last hour has been warning us of all that is 
being plotted against us!” 

“But why not let her be questioned like everybody 
else? As d’Estreicher said just now, it’s possible 
that your earrings were not stolen from your safe. 
You may have put them in your ears without think¬ 
ing to-day, and then lost them out-of-doors . . . 
where some one has picked them up.” 

The inspector, an honest fellow who seemed very 
much annoyed by this difference of opinion between 
the Count and Countess, did not know what to do. 
Dorothy helped him out of the awkward situation. 

“I quite £gree with you, Count. My part in the 
business may very well appear suspicious to you; and 
you have the right to ask how I know the word that 
opens the safe, and if my talents as a diviner are 
enough to explain my clairvoyance. There isn’t any 
reason then for making an exception in my favor.” 



6 2 


THE SECRET TOMB 


She bent low before the Countess and gently 
kissed her hand. 

“You mustn’t be present at the inquiry, madame. 
It’s not a pleasant business. For me, it’s one of the 
risks we strolling entertainers run; but you would 
find it painful. Only, I beg you, for reasons which 
you will presently understand, to come back to us 
after they have questioned me.” 

“I promise you I will.” 

“I’m at your service, inspector.” 

She went off with her four companions and the 
inspector of police. Saint-Quentin had the air of a 
condemned criminal being led to the gallows. Cap¬ 
tain Montfaucon, his hands in his pockets, the string 
round his wrist, dragged along his baggage-wagon 
and whistled an American tune, like a gallant fellow 
who knows that all these little affairs always end 
well. 

At the end of the court-yard, the last of the coun¬ 
try folk were departing through the open gates, be¬ 
side which the gamekeeper was posted. The show¬ 
men were grouped about their, tents and in the 
orangery where the second policeman was examining 
their licenses. 

On reaching her caravan, Dorothy perceived 
d’Estreicher talking to two servants. 

“You then are the director of the inquiry, mon¬ 
sieur?” she said gayly. 

“I am indeed, mademoiselle—in your interest,” 
he said in the same tone. 

“Then I have no doubt about the result of it,” 
she said; and turning to the inspector, she added: 
“I have no keys to give you. Dorothy’s Circus has 


EXTRA-LUCID 63 

no locks. Every thing is open to the world. Empty 
hands and empty pockets.” 

The inspector seemed to have no great relish for 
the job. The two servants did their best and 
d’Estreicher made no bones about advising them. 

“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he said to the young 
girl, taking her on one side. “I’m of the opinion 
that no effort should be spared to make your com¬ 
plicity quite out of the question.” 

“It’s a serious business,” she said ironically. 

“In what way?” 

“Well, recall our conversation. There’s a crim¬ 
inal: if it isn’t me, it’s you.” 

D’Estreicher must have considered the young girl 
a formidable adversary, and he must have been 
frightened by her threats, for while he remained 
quite agreeable, gallant even, jesting with her, he 
was indefatigable in his investigation. At his bid¬ 
ding the servants lifted down the baskets and boxes, 
and displayed her wretched wardrobe, in the strong¬ 
est contrast to the brilliantly colored handkerchiefs 
and shawls with which the young girl loved to adorn 
herself. 

They found nothing. 

They searched the walls and platform of the 
caravan, the mattresses, the harness of One-eyed 
Magpie, the sack of oats, and the food. Nothing. 

They searched the , four boys. A maid felt 
Dorothy’s clothes. The search was fruitless. The 
earrings were not to be found. 

“And that?” said d’Estreicher, pointing to the 
huge basket loaded with pots and pans which hung 
under the vehicle. 


64 THE SECRET TOMB 

With a furtive kick on the ankle Dorothy 
straightened Saint-Quentin who was tottering. 

“Let’s bolt!” he stuttered. 

“Don’t be a fool. The earrings are no longer 
there.” 

“I may have made a mistake.” 

“You’re an idiot. One doesn’t make a mistake in 
a case like that.” 

“Then where is the card-board box?” 

“Have you got your eyes stuffed up?” 

“You can see it, can you?” 

“Of course I can see it—as plainly as the nose in 
the middle of your face.” 

“In the caravan?” 

“No.” 

“Where?” 

“On the ground ten yards away from you, between 
the legs of the bearded one.” 

She glanced at the wagon of Captain Montfaucon 
which the child had abandoned to play with a doll, 
and the little packages from which, miniature bags 
and trunks and parcels, lay on the ground beside 
d’Estreicher’s heels. 

One of these packages was nothing else than the 
card-board box which contained the earrings. Cap¬ 
tain Montfaucon had that afternoon added it to 
what he called his haulage material. 

In confiding her unexpected discovery to Saint- 
Quentin, Dorothy, who did not suspect the keenness 
of the subtlety and power of observation of the man 
she was fighting, committed an irreparable im¬ 
prudence. It was not on the young girl that 
d’Estreicher was keeping watch from behind the 


EXTRA-LUCID 


65 

screen of his spectacles, but on her comrade Saint- 
Quentin whose distress and feebleness he had been 
quick to notice. Dorothy herself remained impas¬ 
sive. But would not Saint-Quentin end by giving 
some indication? 

That was what happened. When he recognized 
the little box with the red gutta-percha ring round it, 
Saint-Quentin heaved a great sigh in his sudden re¬ 
lief. He told himself that it would never occur to 
any one to untie these child’s toys which lay on the 
ground for any one to pick up. Several times, with¬ 
out the slightest suspicion, d’Estreicher had brushed 
them aside with his feet and stumbled over the 
wagon, winning from the Captain this sharp 
reprimand: 

“Now then, sir! What would you say, if you 
had a car and I knocked it over?” 

Saint-Quentin raised his head with a cheerful air. 
D’Estreicher followed the direction of his gaze and 
instinctively understood. The earrings were there, 
under the protection of Fortune and with the un¬ 
witting complicity of the captain. But in which of 
the packages? The cardboard box seemed to him 
to be the most likely. Without a word he bent 
quickly down and seized it. He drew himself up, 
opened it with a furtive movement, and perceived, 
among some small white pebbles and shells, the two 
sapphires. 

He looked at Dorothy. She was very pale. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 

“Let's bolt!” again said Saint-Quentin, who had 
sunk down on to a trunk and would have been in¬ 
capable of making a single step. 

“A splendid idea!” said Dorothy in a low voice. 
“Harness One-eyed Magpie; let’s all five of us hide 
ourselves in the caravan and hell for leather for the 
Belgian frontier!” 

She gazed steadfastly at her enemy. She felt 
that she was beaten. With one word he could hand 
her over to justice, throw her into prison, and render 
vain all her threats. Of what value are the accusa¬ 
tions of a thief? 

Box in hand, he balanced himself on one foot then 
on the other with ironical satisfaction. He had the 
appearance of waiting for her to weaken and become 
a suppliant. How he misjudged her! On the con¬ 
trary she maintained an attitude of defiance and 
challenge as if she had had the audacity to say to 
him: 

“If you speak, you’re lost.” 

He shrugged his shoulders and turning to the 
inspector who had seen nothing of this by-play, he 
said: 

“We may congratulate ourselves on having got it 

66 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 67 

over, and entirely to mademoiselle’s advantage. 
Goodness, what a disagreeable job !” 

“You had no business to set about it at all,” said 
the Countess, coming up with the Count and Raoul 
D avernoie. 

“Oh yes, I had, dear cousin. Your husband and 
I had our doubts. It was just as well to clear them 
up.” 

“And you’ve found nothing?” said the Count. 

“Nothing . . . less than nothing—at the most 
an odd trifle with which Mr. Montfaucon was play¬ 
ing, and which Mademoiselle Dorothy had been 
kind enough to give me. You do, don’t you, 
Mademoiselle?” 

“Yes,” said Dorothy simply. 

He displayed the cardboard box, round which he 
had again drawn the rubber ring, and handing it to 
the Countess: 

“Take care of that till to-morrow morning, will 
you, dear lady?” 

“Why should I take care of it and not you?” 

“It wouldn’t be the same thing,” said he. “To 
place it in your hands is as it were to affix a seal to it. 
To-morrow, at lunch, we’ll open it together.” 

“Do you make a point of it?” 

“Yes. It’s an idea ... of sorts.” 

“Very good,” said the Countess. “I accept the 
charge if mademoiselle authorizes me to do so.” 

“I ask it, madame,” replied Dorothy, grasping 
the fact that the danger was postponed till the mor¬ 
row. “The box contains nothing of importance, 
only white pebbles and shells. But since it amuses 


68 THE SECRET TOMB 

monsieur, and he wants a check on it, give him this 
small satisfaction.” 

There remained, however, a formality which the 
inspector considered essential in inquiries of this 
kind. The examination of identification papers, de¬ 
livery of documents, compliance with the regula¬ 
tions, were matters which he took very seriously 
indeed. On the other hand, if Dorothy surmised 
the existence of a secret between the Count and 
Countess and their cousins, it is certain that her 
hosts were not less puzzled by the strange per¬ 
sonality which for an hour or two had dominated 
and disturbed them. Who was she? Where did 
she come from? What was her real name? What 
was the explanation of the fact that this distin¬ 
guished and intelligent creature, with her supple 
cleverness and distinguished manners, was wander¬ 
ing about the country with four street-boys? 

She took from a locker in the caravan a passport- 
case which she carried under her arm; and when they 
all went into the orangery which was now empty, she 
took from this case a sheet of paper black with 
signatures and stamps and handed it to the inspector. 

“Is this all you’ve got?” he said almost immedi¬ 
ately. 

“Isn’t it sufficient? The secretary at the mayor’s 
office this morning was satisfied with it.” 

“They’re satisfied with anything in mayors’ of¬ 
fices,” he said scornfully. “And what about these 
names? . . . Nobody’s named Castor and Pollux? 
. . . And this one . . . Baron de Saint-Quentin, 
acrobat!” 

Dorothy smiled: 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 69 

“Nevertheless it is his name and his profession.” 

“Baron de Saint-Quentin?” 

“Certainly he was the son of a plumber who lived 
at Saint-Quentin and was called Baron.” 

“But then he must have the paternal authoriza¬ 
tion.” 

“Impossible.” 

“Why?” 

“Because his father died during the occupation.” 

“And his mother?” 

“She’s dead too. No relations. The English 
adopted the boy. Towards the end of the war he 
was assistant-cook in a hospital at Bar-le-Duc, 
where I was a nurse. I adopted him.” 

The inspector uttered a grunt of approval and 
continued his examination. 

“And Castor and Pollux.” 

“I don’t know where they come from. In 1918, 
during the German push towards Chalons, they 
were caught in the storm and picked up on a road by 
some French soldiers who gave them their nick¬ 
names. The shock was so great that they’ve lost 
all memory of the years before those days. Are 
they brothers? Were they acquaintances? Where 
are their families? Nobody knows. I adopted 
them.” 

“Oh!” said the inspector, somewhat taken aback. 
Then he went on: “There remains now Sire 
Montfaucon, captain in the American army, deco¬ 
rated with the Croix de guerre.” 

“Present,” said a voice. 

Montfaucon drew himself stiffly upright in a sol- 


7 o THE SECRET TOMB 

dierly attitude, his heels touching, and his little 
finger on the seam of his enormous trousers. 

Dorothy caught him on to her knee and gave him 
a smacking kiss. 

“A brat, about whom also nobody knows any¬ 
thing. When he was four he was living with a 
dozen American soldiers who had made for him, by 
way of cradle, a fur bag. The day of the great 
American attack, one of the twelve carried him on 
his back; and it happened that of all those who 
advanced, it was this soldier who went furthest, and 
that they found his body next day near Montfaucon 
hill. Beside him, in the fur bag, the child was 
asleep, slightly wounded. On the battle-field, the 
colonel decorated him with the Croix de guerre, and 
gave him the name and rank of Captain Montfaucon 
of J t ' American army. Later it fell to me to nurse 
hir. a the hospital to which he was brought in. 
Three months after that the colonel wished to carry 
him off to America. Montfaucon refused. He 
did not wish to leave me. I adopted him.” 

Dorothy told the child’s story in a low voice full 
of tenderness. The eyes of the Countess shone with 
tears and she murmured: 

“You acted admirably—admirably, mademoiselle. 
Only that gave you four orphans to provide for. 
With what resources?” 

Dorothy laughed and said: 

“We were rich.” 

“Rich?” 

“Yes, thanks to Montfaucon. Before he went 
his colonel left two thousand francs for him. We 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 


7i 

bought a caravan and an old horse. Dorothy’s 
Circus was formed.” 

“A difficult profession to which you have to serve 
an apprenticeship.” 

“We served our apprenticeship under an old Eng¬ 
lish soldier, formerly a clown, who taught us all the 
tricks of the trade and all the wheezes. And then 
I had it all in my blood. The tight-rope, dancing, 
I was broken in to them years ago. Then we set 
out across France. It’s rather a hard life, but it 
keeps one in the best of health, one is never dull, and 
taken all round Dorothy’s Circus is a success.” 

“But does it comply with the official regulations?” 
asked the inspector whose respect for red tape en¬ 
abled him to control the sympathy he was feeling for 
her. “For after all this document is only valuable 
from the point of view of references. What I 
should like to see is your own certificate of identity.” 

“I have that certificate, inspector.” 

“Made out by whom?” 

“By the Prefecture of Chalons, which is the chief 
city of the department in which I w T as born.” 

“Show it to me.” 

The young girl plainly hesitated. She looked at 
Count Octave then at the Countess. She had begged 
them to come just in order that they might be wit¬ 
nesses of her examination and hear the answers she 
proposed to give, and now, at the last moment, she 
was rather sorry that she had done so. 

“Would you prefer us to withdraw?” said the 
Countess. 

“No, no,” she replied quickly. “On the contrary 
I insist on your knowing.” 


72 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“And us too?” said Raoul Davernoie. 

“Yes,” she-said smiling. “There is a fact which 
it is my duty to divulge to you. Oh, nothing of 
great importance. But ... all the same.” 

She took from her case a dirty card with broken 
corners. 

“Here it is,” she said. 

The inspector examined the card carefully and 
said in the tone of one who is not to be humbugged: 

“But that isn’t your name. It’s a nom de guerre 
of course—like those of your young comrades?” 

“Not at all, inspector.” 

“Come, come, you’re not going to get me to 
believe ...” 

“Here is my birth certificate in support of it, 
inspector, stamped with the stamp of the commune 
of Argonne.” 

“What ? You belong to the village of Argonne!” 
cried the Count de Chagny. 

“I did, Monsieur le Comte. But this unknown 
village, which gave its name to the whole district of 
the Argonne, no longer exists. The war has 
suppressed it.” 

“Yes . . . yes ... I know,” said the Count. 
“We had a friend there—a relation. Didn’t we, 
d’Estreicher ?” 

“Doubtless it was Jean d’Argonne?” she asked. 

“It was. Jean d’Argonne died at the hospital at 
Clermont from the effects of a wound . . . Lieu¬ 
tenant the Prince of Argonne. You knew him.” 

“I knew him.” 

“Where? When? Under what conditions?” 

“Goodness! Under the ordinary conditions in 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 73 

which one knows a person with whom one is closely 
connected.” 

“What? There were ties between you and Jean 
d’Argonne . . . the ties of relationship?” 

“The closest ties. He was my father.” 

“Your father! Jean d’Argonne! What are you 
talking about? It’s impossible! See why . . . 
Jean’s daughter was called Yolande.” 

“Yolande, Isabel, Dorothy.” 

The Count snatched the card which the inspector 
was turning over and over again, and read aloud in 
a tone of amazement: 

“Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne!” 

She finished the sentence for him, laughing: 

“Countess Marescot, Baroness de la Hetraie, de 
Beaugreval, and other places.” 

The Count seized the birth certificate with no less 
eagerness, and more and more astounded, read it 
slowly syllable by syllable: 

“Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne, 
born at Argonne, on the 14th of October, 1900, 
legitimate daughter of Jean de Marescot, Prince of 
Argonne, and of Jessie Varenne.” 

Further doubt was impossible. The civil status 
to which the young girl laid claim was established 
by proofs, which they were the less inclined to chal¬ 
lenge since the unexpected fact explained exactly 
everything which appeared inexplicable in the 
manners and even in the appearance of Dorothy. 

The Countess gave her feelings full play: 

“Yolande? You are the little Yolande about 
whom Jean d’Argonne used to talk to us with such 
fondness.” 


74 THE SECRET TOMB 

“He was very fond of me,” said the young girl. 
“Circumstances did not allow us to live always to¬ 
gether as I should have liked. But I was as fond of 
him as if I had seen him every day.” 

“Yes,” said the Countess. “One could not help 
being fond of him. I only saw him twice in my 
life, in Paris, at the beginning of the war. But 
what delightful recollections of him I retain! A 
man teeming with gayety and lightheartedness! 
Just like you, Dorothy. Besides, I find him again 
in you . . . the eyes . . . and above all the smile.” 

Dorothy displayed two photographs which she 
took from among her papers. 

“His portrait, madame. Do you recognize it?” 

“I should think so ! And the other, this lady?” 

“My mother who died many years ago. He 
adored her.” 

“Yes, yes, I know. She was formerly on the 
stage, wasn’t she? I remember. We will talk it 
all over, if you will, and about your own life, the 
misfortunes which have driven you to live like this. 
But first of all, how came you here? And why?” 

Dorothy told them how she had chanced to see the 
word Roborey, which her father had repeated when 
he was dying. Then the Count interrupted her 
narration. 

He was a perfectly commonplace man who always 
did his best to invest matters with the greatest pos¬ 
sible solemnity, in order that he might play the chief 
part in them, which his rank and fortune assigned to 
him. As a matter of form he consulted his two 
comrades, then, without waiting to hear their 
answers, he dismissed the inspector with the lack of 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 


75 

ceremony of a grand seignior. In the same fashion 
he turned out Saint-Quentin and the three boys, 
carefully closed the two doors, bade the two women 
sit down, and walked up and down in front of them 
with his hands behind his back and an air of pro¬ 
found thoughtfulness. 

Dorothy was quite content. She had won a vic¬ 
tory, compelled her hosts to speak the words she 
wanted. The Countess held her tightly to her. 
Raoul appeared to be a friend. All was going 
well. There was, indeed, standing a little apart 
from them, hostile and formidable, the bearded 
nobleman, whose hard eyes never left her. But 
sure of herself, accepting the combat, full of care¬ 
less daring, she refused to bend before the menace 
of the terrible danger which, howxver, might at any 
moment crush her. 

“Mademoiselle,” said the Count de Chagny with 
an air of great importance. “It has seemed to us, 
to my cousins and me, since you are the daughter of 
Jean d’Argonne, whose loss we so deeply deplore— 
it has seemed to us, I say, that we ought in our turn, 
to enlighten you concerning events of which he was 
cognizant and of which he would have informed you 
had he not been prevented by death ... of which 
he actually desired, as we know, that you should be 
informed.” 

He paused, delighted with his preamble. On oc¬ 
casions like this he loved to indulge in a pomposity of 
diction employing only the most select vocabulary, 
striving to observe the rules of grammar, and fear¬ 
less of subjunctives. He went on: 

“Mademoiselle, my father, Francois de Chagny, 


THE SECRET TOMB 


76 

my grandfather, Dominique de Chagny, and my 
great-grandfather, Gaspard de Chagny, lived their 
lives in the sure conviction that great wealth would 
be . . . how shall I put it? . . . would be offered 
to them, by reason of certain unknown conditions of 
which each of them was confident in advance that he 
would be the beneficiary. And each of them took 
the greater joy in the fact and indulged in a hope all 
the more agreeable because the Revolution had 
ruined the house of the Counts de Chagny from the 
roof-tree to the basement. On what was this con¬ 
viction based? Neither Frangois, nor Dominique, 
nor Gaspard de Chagny ever knew. It came from 
vague legends which described exactly neither the na¬ 
ture of the riches nor the epoch at which they would 
appear, but all of which had this in common that 
they evoked the name of Roborey. And these 
legends could not have gone very far back since this 
chateau, which w T as formerly called the Chateau de 
Chagny, only received the name of Chagny-Roborey 
in the reign of Louis XVI. Is it this designation 
which brought about the excavations that v r ere made 
from time to time? It is extremely probable. At 
all events it is a fact that at the very moment the 
war broke out I had formed the resolution of re¬ 
storing this Chateau de Roborey, which had become 
merely a shooting-box and definitely settling down in 
it, for all that, and I am not ashamed to say it, my 
recent marriage with Madame de Chagny had en¬ 
abled me to wait for these so-called riches without 
excessive impatience.” 

The Count smiled a subtle smile in making this 


THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 


77 ; 

discreet allusion to the manner in which he had re¬ 
gilded his heraldic shield, and continued: 

“It is needless to tell you, I hope, that during the 
war the Count de Chagny did his duty as a good 
Frenchman. In 1915, as lieutenant of light- 
infantry, I was in Paris on leave when a series of 
coincidences, brought about by the war, brought me 
into touch with three persons with whom I had not 
previously been acquainted, and whose ties of kin¬ 
ship with the Chagny-Roborey I learnt by accident. 
The first was the father of Raoul Davernoie, Com¬ 
mandant Georges Davernoie, the second Maxime 
d’Estreicher, the last Jean d’Argonne. All four of 
us were distant cousins, all four on leave or recover¬ 
ing from wounds. And so it came about that in the 
course of our interviews, that we learnt, to our great 
surprise, that the same legend had been handed 
down in each of our four families. Like their 
fathers and their grandfathers Georges Davernoie, 
d’Estreicher, and Jean d’Argonne were awaiting the 
fabulous fortune which was promised them and which 
was to settle the debts which this conviction had led 
them on to contract. Moreover, the same ignorance 
prevailed among the four cousins. No proof, no 
indication-” 

After a fresh pause intended to lead up to an im¬ 
pressive effect, the Count continued: “But yes, one 
indication, however: Jean d’Argonne remembered 
a gold medal the importance of which his father had 
formerly impressed on him. His father died a few 
days later from an accident in the hunting-field 
without having told him anything more. But Jean 
d’Argonne declared that this medal bore on it an 



THE SECRET TOMB 


78 

inscription, and that one of these words, he did not 
recall it at once, was this word Roborey, on which 
all our hopes are undoubtedly concentrated. He in¬ 
formed us then of his intention of ransacking the 
twenty trunks or so, which he had been able in 
August, 1914, to bring away from his country seat 
before its imminent pillage, and to store in a shed at 
Bar-le-Duc. But before he went, since we were all 
men of honor, exposed to the risks of war, we all 
four took a solemn oath that all our discoveries 
relative to the famous treasure, should be common 
property. Henceforth and forever, the treasure, 
should Providence decide to grant it to us, belonged 
to all the four; and Jean d’Argonne, whose leave ex¬ 
pired, left us.” 

“It was at the end of 1915, wasn’t it?” asked 
Dorothy. “We passed a week together, the hap¬ 
piest week of my life. I was never to see him 
again.” 

“It was indeed towards the end of 1915,” the 
Count agreed. “A month later Jean d’Argonne, 
wounded in the North, was sent into hospital at 
Chartres, from which he wrote to us a long letter 
. . . never finished.” 

The Countess de Chagny made a sudden move¬ 
ment. She appeared to disapprove of what her 
husband had said. 

“Yes, yes, I will lay that letter before you,” said 
the Count firmly. 

“Perhaps you’re right,” murmured the Countess. 
“Nevertheless- 

“What are you afraid of, madame?” said Dor¬ 
othy. 



THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 


79 

“I am afraid of our causing you pain to no pur¬ 
pose, Dorothy. The end of it will reveal to you 
very painful things.” 

“But it is our duty to communicate it to her,” said 
the Count in a peremptory tone. And he drew from 
his pocket-book a letter stamped with the Red Cross 
and unfolded it. Dorothy felt her heart flutter with 
a sudden oppression. She recognized her father’s 
handwriting. The Countess squeezed her hand. 
She saw that Raoul Davernoie was regarding her 
with an air of compassion; and with an anxious face, 
trying less to understand the sentences she heard 
than to guess the end of this letter, she listened to it. 

“My dear Octave, 

“I will first of all set your mind at rest about my wound. 
It is a mere nothing, no complications to be afraid of. At 
the most a little fever at night, which bothers the major; 
but all that will pass. We will say no more about it, but 
come straight to my journey to Bar-le-Duc. 

“Octave, I may tell you without any beating about the 
bush that it has not been useless, and that after a patient 
search I ended by ferreting out from among a pile of boots 
and that conglomeration of useless objects which one brings 
away with one when one bolts, the precious medal. At 
the end of my convalescence when I come to Paris I will 
show it to you. But in the meantime, while keeping secret 
the indications engraved on the face of the medal, I may 
tell you that on the reverse are engraved these three Latin 
words: ‘In Robore Fortunal Three words which may 
be thus translated: ‘Fortune is in the firm heart,’ but 
which, in view of the presence of this word ‘Robore’ and 
in spite of the difference in the spelling, doubtless point to 
the Chateau de Roborey as the place in which the fortune, 
of which our family legends tell will consequently be hidden. 

“Have we not here, my dear Octave, a step forward on 
our path towards the truth ? We shall do better still. And 


8o 


THE SECRET TOMB 


perhaps we shall be helped in the matter, in the most un¬ 
expected fashion, by an extremely nice young person, with 
whom I have just passed several days which have charmed 
me—I mean my dear little Yolande. 

“You know, my dear friend, that I have very often re¬ 
gretted not having been the father I should like to have 
been. My love for Yolande’s mother, my grief at her death, 
my life of wandering during the years which followed it, 
all kept me far away from the modest farm which you 
call my country seat, and which, I am sure, is no longer 
anything but a heap of ruins. 

“During that time, Yolande was living in the care of 
the people who farmed my land, bringing herself up, getting 
her education from the village priest, or the schoolmaster, 
and above all from Nature, loving the animals, cultivating 
her flowers, 'light-hearted and uncommonly thoughtful. 

“Several times, during my visits to Argonne, her common 
sense and intelligence astonished me. On this occasion I 
found her, in the field-hospital of Bar-le-Duc, in which 
she has, on her own initiative, established herself as an 
assistant-nurse, a young girl. Barely fifteen, you cannot 
imagine the ascendancy she exercises over everyone about 
her. She decides matters like a grown person and she makes 
those decisions according to her own judgment. She has 
an accurate insight into reality, not merely into appearances 
but into that which lies below appearances. 

“ ‘You do see clearly,’ I said to her. ‘You have the eyes 
of a cat which moves, quite at its ease, through the 
darkness.’ 

“My dear Octave, when the war is finished, I shall bring 
Yolande to you; and I assure you that, along with our 
friends, we shall succeed in our enterprise-” 

The Count stopped. Dorothy smiled sadly, 
deeply touched by the tenderness and admiration 
which this letter so clearly displayed. She asked: 
“That isn’t all, is it?” 

“The letter itself ends there,” said the Count. 
“Dated the 16th of January, it was not posted till 



THE CROSS-EXAMINATION 


81 

the 20th. I did not receive it, for various reasons, 
till three weeks later. And I learnt later that on 
the 15th of January Jean d’Argonne had a more 
violent attack of fever, of that fever which baffled 
the surgeon-major and which indicated a sudden in¬ 
fection of the wound of which your father died . . * 
or at least-” 

“Or at least?” asked the young girl. 

“Or at least which was officially stated to be the 
cause of his death,” said the Count in a lower voice. 

“What’s that you say? What’s that you say?” 
cried Dorothy. “My father did not die of his 
wound?” 

“It is not certain,” the Count suggested. 

“But then what did he die of? What do you sug¬ 
gest? What do you suppose?” 



CHAPTER V 


“we will help you” 

The Count was silent. 

Dorothy murmured fearfully, full of the dread 
with which the utterance of certain words inspired 
one : 

“Is it possible? Can they have murdered E * . 
Can they have murdered my father?” 

“Everything leads one to believe it.” 

“And how?” 

“Poison.” 

The blow had fallen. The young girl burst into 
tears. The Count bent over her and said: 

“Read it. For my part, I am of the opinion that 
your father scribbled these last pages between two 
attacks of fever. When he was dead, the hospital 
authorities finding a letter and an envelope all ready 
for the post, sent it all on to me without examining 
it. Look at the end. . . . It is the writing of a very 
sick man. . . . The pencil moves at random di¬ 
rected by an effort of will which was every moment 
growing weaker.” 

Dorothy dried her tears. She wished to know 
and judge for herself, and she read in a low voice: 

“What a dream! . . . But was it really a dream? . . . 
What I saw last night, did I see it in a nightmare? Or 

82 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 83 

did I actually see it? . . . The rest of the wounded 
men . . . my neighbors . . . not one of them was 

awakened. Yet the man . . . the men made a noise. . . . 

There were two of them. They were talking in a low 
voice ... in the garden . . . under a window . . . 
which was certainly open on account of the heat. . . . And 
then the window was pushed. . . . To do that one of 
the two must have climbed on to the shoulders of the other. 
What did he want? He tried to pass his arm through. . . . 
But the window caught against the table by the side of the 

bed. . . . And then he must have slipped off his jacket. 

... In spite of that his sleeve must have caught in the 
window and only his arm . . . his bare arm, came 
through . . . preceded by a hand which groped in my 
direction ... in the direction of the drawer. . . . Then 
I understood. . . . The medal was in the drawer. . . . 
Ah, how I wanted to cry out! But my throat was cramped. 

. . . Then another thing terrified me. The hand held a 
small bottle. . . . There was on the table a glass of 
water, for me to drink with a dose of my medicine. . . . 
The hand poured several drops from the bottle into the 
glass. Horror! . . . Poison beyond a doubt! . . . But 
I will not drink my medicine—no, no! . . . And I write 
this, this morning, to make sure of being able to recall it. 
... I write that the hand afterwards opened the 
drawer. . . . And while it was seizing the medal ... I 
saw ... I saw on the naked arm . . . above the 
elbow . . . words written-” 

Dorothy had to bend lower so shaky and illegible 
did the writing become; and it was with great diffi¬ 
culty that she was able, syllable by syllable, to de¬ 
cipher it: 

“Three words written . . . tattooed ... as sailors 
do . . . three words . . . Good God! . . . these 
three words! The words on the medal! ... In robore 
fortuna!” 



84 THE SECRET TOMB 

That was all. The unfinished sheet showed noth¬ 
ing more but undecipherable characters, which 
Dorothy did not even try to make out. 

For a long while she sat with bowed head, the 
tears falling from her half-closed eyes. They per¬ 
ceived that the circumstances in which, in all likeli¬ 
hood, her father had died, had brought back all her 
grief. 

The Count, however, continued: 

“The fever must have returned . . . the delirium 
. . . and not knowing what he was doing, he must 
have drunk the poison. Or, at any rate, it is a 
plausible hypothesis . . . for what else could it 
have been that this hand poured into the glass? But 
I confess that we have not arrived at any certainty 
in the matter. D’Estreicher and Raoul’s father, at 
once apprized by me of what had happened, accom¬ 
panied me to Chartres. Unfortunately, the staff, 
the surgeon-major and the two nurses had been 
changed, so that I was brought up short against the 
official document which ascribed the death to infec¬ 
tious complications. Moreover, ought we to have 
made further researches? My two cousins were not 
of that opinion, neither was I? A crime? . . . 
Flow to prove it? By means of these lines in which 
a sick man describe a nightmare which has rid¬ 
den him? Impossible. Isn’t that your opinion, 
mademoiselle?” 

Dorothy did not answer; and it put the Count 
rather out of countenance. He seemed to defend 
himself—not without a touch of temper: 

“But we could not, Mademoiselle! Owing to the 
war, we ran against endless difficulties. It was im- 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 85 

possible! We had to cling to the one fact which we 
had actually learned and not venture beyond this 
actual fact which I will state in these terms: In 
addition to us four, to us three rather, since Jean 
d’Argonne, alas! was no more, there was a fourth 
person attacking the problem which we had set our¬ 
selves to solve; and that person, moreover, had a 
considerable advantage over us. A rival, an enemy 
had arisen, capable of the most infamous actions to 
attain his end. What enemy? 

“Events did not allow us to busy ourselves with 
this affair, and what is more, prevented us from 
finding you as we should have wished. Two letters 
that I wrote to you at Bar-le-Duc remained un¬ 
answered. Months passed. Georges Davernoie 
was killed at Verdun, d’Estreicher wounded in 
Artois, and I myself despatched on a mission to 
Salonica from which I did not return till after the 
Armistice. In the following year the work here was 
begun. The house-warming took place yesterday, 
and only to-day does chance bring you here. 

“You can understand, Mademoiselle, how amazed 
we were when we learned, step by step, first that 
excavations were being made without our knowing 
anything about it, that the places in which they had 
been made were explained by the word Fortuna, 
which bore out exactly the inscription which your 
father had read twice, on the gold medal and on the 
arm which stole the gold medal from him. Our 
confidence in your extraordinary clearsightedness 
became such that Madame de Chagny and Raoul 
Davernoie wished you to be informed of the com¬ 
plete history of the affair; and I must admit that the 


86 THE SECRET TOMB 

Countess de Chagny displayed remarkable intuition 
and judgment since the confidence we felt in you was 
really placed in that Yolande d’Argonne whom her 
father recommended to us. It is then but natural, 
mademoiselle, that we should invite you to collabo¬ 
rate with us in our attempt. You take the place of 
Jean d’Argonne, as Raoul Davernoie has taken the 
place of Georges Davernoie. Our partnership is 
unbroken.” 

A shadow rested on the satisfaction that the 
Count de Chagny was feeling in his eloquence and 
magnanimous proposal. Dorothy maintained an 
obstinate silence. Her eyes gazed vacantly before 
her. She did not stir. Was she thinking that the 
Count had not taken much trouble to discover the 
daughter of his kinsman Jean d’Argonne and to 
rescue her from the life she was leading? Was she 
still feeling some resentment on account of the 
humiliation she had suffered in being accused of 
stealing the earrings? 

The Countess de Chagny questioned her gently: 

“What’s the matter, Dorothy? This letter hast 
filled you with gloom. It’s the death of your father, 
isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” said Dorothy after a pause in a dull voice. 
“It’s a terrible business.” , 

“You also believe that they murdered him?” 

“Certainly. If not, the medal would have been 
found. Besides, the last sheets of the letter are 
explicit.” 

“And it’s your feeling that we ought to have 
striven to bring the murderer to book?” 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 87 

“I don’t know ... I don’t know,” said the 
young girl slowly. 

“But if you think so, we can take the matter up 
again. You may be sure that we will lend you our 
assistance.” 

“No,” she said. “I will act alone. It will be 
best. I will discover the guilty man; and he shall be 
punished. I promise my father he shall. I swear 
it.” 

She uttered these words with measured gravity, 
raising her hand a little. 

“We will help you, Dorothy,” declared the 
Countess. “For I hope that you won’t leave us. 
. . . Here you are at home.” 

Dorothy shook her head. “You are too kind, 
madame.” 

“It isn’t kindness: it’s affection. You won my 
heart at first sight, and I beg you to be my friend.” 

“I am, madame—wholly your friend. But-” 

“What? You refuse?” exclaimed the Count de 
Chagny in a tone of vexation. “We offer the 
daughter of Jean d’Argonne, our cousin, a life be¬ 
fitting her name and birth and you prefer to go back 
to that wretched existence !” 

“It is not wretched, I assure you, monsieur. My 
four children and I are used to it. Their health 
demands it.” 

The Countess insisted: “But we can’t allow it— 
really! You’re going to stay with us at least some 
days; and from this evening you will dine and sleep 
at the chateau.” 

“I beg you to excuse me, madame. I’m rather 
tired ... I want to be alone.” 



88 


THE SECRET TOMB 

In truth she appeared of a sudden to be worn out 
with fatigue. One would never have supposed that 
a smile could animate that drawn, dejected face. 

The Countess de Chagny insisted no longer. 

“Ah well, postpone your decision till to-morrow. 
Send your four children to dinner this evening. It 
will give us great pleasure to question them. . . . 
Between now and to-morrow you can think it over, 
and if you persist, I’ll let you go your way. You’ll 
agree to that, won’t you?” 

Dorothy rose and went towards the door. The 
Count and Countess went with her. But on the 
threshold she paused for a moment. In spite of her 
grief, the mysterious adventure which had during the 
last hour or two been revealed to her continued to 
exercise her mind, without, so to speak, her being 
aware of it; and throwing the first ray of light into 
the darkness, she asserted: 

“I really believe that all the legends that have 
been handed down in our families are based on a 
reality. There must be somewhere about here 
buried, or hidden, treasure; and that treasure one of 
these days will become the property of him, or of 
those who shall be the possessors of the talisman—« 
that is to say, of the gold medal which was stolen 
from my father. That’s why I should like to know 
whether any of you, besides my father, has ever 
heard of a gold medal being mentioned in these 
legends.” 

It was Raoul Davernoie who answered: 

“That’s a point on which I can give you some in¬ 
formation, mademoiselle. A fortnight ago I saw in 
the hands of my grandfather, with whom I live at 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 


89 

Hillocks Manor in Vendee, a large gold coin. He 
was studying it; and he put it back in its case at once 
with the evident intention of hiding it from me.” 

“And he didn’t tell you anything about it?” 

“Not a word. However, on the eve of my de¬ 
parture he said to me: ‘When you come back I’ve 
an important revelation to make to you. I ought to 
have made it long ago.’ ” 

“You believe that he was referring to the matter 
in hand?” 

“I do. And for that reason on my arrival at 
Roborey I informed my cousins, de Chagny and 
d’Estreicher, who promised to pay me a visit at the 
end of July when I will inform them of what I have 
learned.” 

“That’s all?” 

“All, mademoiselle; and it appears to me to con¬ 
firm your hypothesis. We have here a talisman of 
which there are doubtless several copies.” 

“Yes . . . yes . . . there’s no doubt about it,” 
murmured the young girl. “And the death of my 
father is explained by the fact that he was the pos¬ 
sessor of this talisman.” 

“But,” objected Raoul Davernoie, “was it not 
enough to steal it from him? Why this useless 

* 'JU 

crime r 

“Because, remember, the gold medal gives certain 
indications. In getting rid of my father they re¬ 
duced the number of those who, in perhaps the near 
future, will be called upon to share these riches. 
Who knows whether other crimes have not been 
committed?” 


9 o 


THE SECRET TOMB 

“Other crimes? In that case my grandfather is 
in danger.” 

“He is,” she said simply. 

The Count became uneasy and, pretending to 
laugh, he said: 

“Then we also are in danger, mademoiselle, since 
there are signs of recent excavation about Roborey.” 

“You also, Count.” 

“We ought then to be on our guard.” 

“I advise you to.” 

The Count de Chagny turned pale and said in a 
shaky voice: 

“How? What measures should we take?” 

“I will tell you to-morrow,” said Dorothy. “You 
shall know to-morrow what you have to fear and 
what measures you ought to take to defend your¬ 
selves.” 

“You promise that?” 

“I promise it.” 

D’Estreicher, who had followed with close atten¬ 
tion every phase of the conversation, without taking 
part in it, stepped forward: 

“We make all the more point of this meeting to¬ 
morrow, mademoiselle, because we still have to solve 
together a little additional problem, the problem of 
the cardboard box. You haven’t forgotten it?” 

“I forget nothing, monsieur,” she said. “To¬ 
morrow, at the hour fixed, that little matter and 
other matters, the theft of the sapphire earrings 
among other things, shall be made clear.” 

She went out of the orangery. 

• •••••• 

The night was falling. The gates had been re- 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 


9i 

opened; and the showmen, having dismantled their 
shows, were departing. Dorothy found Saint-Quen- 
tin waiting for her in great anxiety and the three 
children lighting a fire. When the dinner-bell rang, 
she sent them to the chateau and remained alone to 
make her meal of the thick soup and some fruit. In 
the evening, while waiting for them, she strolled 
through the night towards the parapet which looked 
down on to the ravine and rested her elbows on it. 

The moon was not visible, but the veil of light 
clouds, which floated across the heavens, were im¬ 
bued with its light. For a long while she was 
conscious of the deep silence, and, bare-headed, she 
presented her burning brow to the fresh evening airs 
which ruffled her hair. 

“Dorothy . . .” 

Her name had been spoken in a low voice by some 
one who had drawn near her without her hearing 
him. But the sound of his voice, low as it was, made 
her tremble. Even before recognizing the outline of 
d’Estreicher she divined his presence. 

Had the parapet been lower and the ravine less 
profound she might have essayed flight, such dread 
did this man inspire in her. However, she braced 
herself to keep calm and master him. 

“What do you want, monsieur,” she said coldly. 
“The Count and Countess had the delicacy to re¬ 
spect my desire to keep quiet. I’m surprised to see 
you here.” 

He did not answer, but she discerned his dark 
shape nearer and repeated: 

“What do you want?” 


92 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“I only want to say a few words to you,” he 
murmured. 

“To-morrow—at the chateau will be soon 
enough.” 

“No; what I have to say can only be heard by you 
and me; and I can assure you, mademoiselle, that 
3^ou can listen to it without being offended. In spite 
of the incomprehensible hostility that you have dis¬ 
played towards me from the moment we met, I feel, 
for my part, nothing but friendliness, admiration, 
and the greatest respect for you. You need fear 
neither my words nor my actions. I am not address¬ 
ing myself to the charming and attractive young girl, 
but to the woman who, all this afternoon, has dum- 
founded us by her intelligence. Now, listen to 


“No,” she broke in. “I will not. Your proposals 
can only be insulting.” 

He went on, in a louder voice; and she could feel 
that gentleness and respectfulness did not come easy 
to him; he went on : 

“Listen to me. I order you to listen to me . . . 
and to answer at once. I’m no maker of phrases and 
I’ll come straight to the point, rather crudely if I 
must, at the risk of shocking you. Here it is: 
Chance has in a trice thrown you into an affair which 
I have every right to consider my business and no 
one else’s. We are stuck with supernumeraries, of 
whom, when the time comes, I do not mean to take 
the slightest account. All these people are imbeciles 
who will never get anywhere. Chagny is a conceited 
ass. . . . Davernoie a country bumpkin ... so 
much dead weight that we’ve got to lug about with 



“WE WILL HELP YOU” 


93 

us, you and I. Then why work for them? . . . 
Let’s work for ourselves, for the two of us. Will 
you? You and I partners, friends, what a job we 
should make of it! My energy and strength at the 
service of your intelligence and clearsightedness! 
Besides . . . besides, consider all I know! For 
I, I know the problem! What will take you weeks 
to discover, what, I’m certain, you’ll never discover, 
I have at my fingers’ ends. I know all the factors 
in the problem except one or two which I shall end 
by adding to them. Help me. Let us search to¬ 
gether. It means a fortune, the discovery of 
fabulous wealth, boundless power. . . . Will 
you ?” 

He bent a little too far over the young girl; and 
his fingers brushed the cloak she was wearing. 
Dorothy, who had listened in silence in order to 
learn the inmost thoughts of her adversary, started 
back indignantly at his touch. 

“Be off! . . . Leave me alone! ... I forbid 
you to touch me! . . . You a friend? . . . lou? 
You?” 

The repulsion with which he inspired Dorothy set 
him beside himself, and foaming with rage, he cried 
furiously: 

“So . . . So . . . you refuse? You refuse, in 
spite of the secret I have surprised, in spite of what 
I can do . . . and what I’m going to do. . . . For 
the stolen earrings: it is not merely a matter of 
Saint-Quentin. You were there, in the ravine, to 
watch over his expedition. And what is more, as 
his accomplice, you protected him. And the proof 


THE SECRET TOMB 


94 

exists, terrible, irrefutable. The box is in the hands 
of the Countess. And you dare? You! A thief!” 

He made a grab at her. Dorothy ducked and 
slipped along the parapet. But he was able to grip 
her wrists, and he was dragging her towards him, 
when of a sudden he let go of her, struck by a ray 
of light which blinded him. 

Perched on the parapet Montfaucon had switched 
full on his face the clear light of an electric torch. 

D’Estreicher took himself off. The ray followed 
him, cleverly guided. 

“Dirty little brat!” he growled. “I’ll get you 
. . . And you too, young woman! If to-morrow, 
at two o’clock, at the chateau, you do not come to 
heel, the box will be opened in the presence of the 
police. It’s for you to choose.” 

He disappeared in the shrubbery. 

Toward three o’clock in the morning, the trap, 
which looked down on the box from the interior of 
the caravan, was opened, as it had been opened the 
morning before. A hand reached out and shook 
Saint-Quentin, w r ho was sleeping under his rugs. 

“Get up. Dress yourself. No noise.” 

He protested. 

“Dorothy, what you w T ish to do is absurd.” 

“Do as you’re told.” 

Saint-Quentin obeyed. 

Outside the caravan he found Dorothy, quite 
ready. By the light of the moon he saw that she 
was carrying a canvas bag, slung on a band running 
over her shoulder, and a coil of rope. 

She led him to the spot at which the parapet 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 


95 

touched the entrance gates. They fastened the rope 
to one of the bars and slid down it. Then Saint- 
Quentin climbed up to the parapet and unfastened 
the rope. They went down the slope into the ravine 
and along the foot of the cliff to the fissure up which 
Saint-Quentin had climbed the night before. 

“Let us climb up,” said Dorothy. “You will let 
down the rope and help me to ascend.” 

The ascent was not very difficult. The window 
of the pantry was open. They climbed in through 
it and Dorothy lit her bull’s-eye lantern. 

“Take that little ladder in the corner,” she said. 

But Saint-Quentin started to reason with her 
afresh: 

“It’s absurd. It’s madness. We are running 
into the lion’s maw.” 

“Get on!” 

“But indeed, Dorothy.” 

He got a thump in the ribs. 

“Stop it! And answer me,” she snapped. 
“You’re sure that d’Estreicher’s is the last bedroom 
in the left-hand passage.” 

“Certain. As you told me to, I questioned the 
servants without seeming to do so, after dinner last 
night.” 

“And you dropped the powder I gave you into his 
cup of coffee ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then he’s sleeping like a log; and we can go 
straight to him. Not another word!” 

On their way they stopped at a door. It was the 
dressing-room adjoining the boudoir of the Countess. 


THE SECRET TOMB 


96 

Saint-Quentin set his ladder against it and climbed 
through the transom. 

Three minutes later he came back. 

“Did you find the cardboard box?” Dorothy 
asked. 

“Yes. I found it on the table, took the earrings 
out of it, and put the box back in its place with the 
rubber ring round it.” 

They went on down the passage. 

Each bedroom had a dressing-room and a closet 
which served as wardrobe attached to it. They 
stopped before the last transom; Saint-Quentin 
climbed through it and opened the door of the dress¬ 
ing-room for Dorothy. 

There was a door between the dressing-room and 
the bedroom. Dorothy opened it an inch and let a 
ray from her lantern fall on the bed. 

“He’s asleep,” she whispered. 

She drew a large handkerchief from her bag, un- 
corke4 a small bottle of chloroform and poured 
some drops on the handkerchief. 

Across the bed, in his clothes, like a man suddenly 
overcome by sleep, d’Estreicher was sleeping so 
deeply that the young girl switched on the electric 
light. Then very gently she placed the chloro¬ 
formed handkerchief over his face. 

The man sighed, writhed, and was still. 

Very cautiously Dorothy and Saint-Quentin passed 
two slip-knots in a rope over both of his arms and 
tied the two ends of it round the iron uprights of the 
bed. Then quickly without bothering about him 
they wrapped the bedclothes round his body and 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 97 

legs, and tied them round him with the table-cloth 
and curtain-cords. 

Then d’Estreicher did awake. He tried to de¬ 
fend himself—too late. He called out. Dorothy 
gagged him with a napkin. 

Next morning the Count and Countess de Chagny 
were taking their coffee with Raoul Davernoie in the 
big dining-room of the chateau when the porter came 
to inform them that at daybreak the directress of 
Dorothy’s Circus had asked him to open the gates 
and that the caravan had departed. The directress 
had left a letter addressed to the Count de Chagny. 
All three of them went upstairs to the Countess’s 
boudoir. The letter ran as follows: 

“My cousin”—offended by her brusqueness, the 
Count started—then he went on : 

“My cousin: I took an oath, and I keep it. The 
man who was making excavations round the chateau 
and last night stole the earrings, is the same person 
who five years ago stole the medal and poisoned my 
father. 

I hand him over to you. Let justice take its 
course. 

Dorothy, Princess of Argonne. 

The Count and Countess and their cousin gazed 
at one another in amazement. What did it mean? 
Who was the culprit. How and where had she 
handed him over? 

“It’s a pity that d’Estreicher isn’t down,” said 
the Count. “He is so helpful.” 


THE SECRET TOMB 


98 

The Countess took up the cardboard box which 
d’Estreicher had entrusted to her and opened it with¬ 
out more ado. The box contained exactly what 
Dorothy had told them, some white pebbles and 
shells. Then why did d’Estreicher seem to attach 
so much importance to his finding it? 

Some one knocked gently at the boudoir door. It 
was the major-domo, the Count’s confidential man. 

“What is it, Dominique?” 

“The chateau w r as broken into last night.” 

“Impossible!” the Count declared in a positive 
tone. “The doors were all locked. Where did they 
break in?” 

“I don’t know. But I’ve found a ladder against 
the wall by Monsieur d’Estreicher’s bedroom; and 
the transom is broken. The criminals made their 
way into the dressing-room and when they had done 
the job, came out through the bedroom door.” 

“What job?” 

“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t like to go further 
into the matter by myself. I put everything back in 
its place.” 

The Count de Chagny drew a hundred-franc note 
from his pocket. 

“Not a word of this, Dominique. Watch the 
corridor and see that no one disturbs us.” 

Raoul and his wife followed him. The door be¬ 
tween d’Estreicher’s dressing-room and bedroom 
was half open. The smell of chloroform filled the 
room. 

The Count uttered a cry. 

On his bed lay d’Estreicher gagged and safely 


“WE WILL HELP YOU” 99 

bound to it. His eyes were rolling wildly. He was 
groaning. 

Beside him lay the muffler which Dorothy had 
described as belonging to the man who was engaged 
in making excavations. 

On the table, well in sight, lay the sapphire ear¬ 
rings. 

But a terrifying, overwhelming sight met the 
eyes of all three of them simultaneously—the irre¬ 
futable proof of the murder of Jean d’Argonne and 
the theft of the medal. His right arm, bare, was 
stretched out across the bed, fastened by the wrist. 
And on that arm they read, tattooed: 


In robore fortuna . 


CHAPTER VI 


ON THE ROAD 

Every day, at the easy walk or slack trot of One- 
eyed Magpie, Dorothy’s Circus moved on. In the 
afternoon they gave their performance; after it they 
strolled about those old towns of France, the 
picturesque charm of which appealed so strongly to 
the young girl. Domfront, Mortain, Avranches, 
Fougeres, Vitre, feudal cities, girdled in places by 
their fortifications, or bristling with their ancient 
keeps . . . Dorothy visited them with all the emo¬ 
tion of a creature who understands the past and 
evokes it with a passionate enthusiasm. 

She visited them alone, even as she walked alone 
along the high roads, with so manifest a desire to 
keep to herself that the others, while watching her 
with anxious eyes and silently begging for a glance 
from their little mother, did not speak a word to 
her. 

That lasted a week, a very dull week for the 
children. The pale Saint-Quentin walked at the 
head of One-eyed Magpie as he would have walked 
at the head of a horse drawing a hearse. Castor 
and Pollux fought no longer. As for the captain he 
buried himself in the perusal of his lesson-books and 
wore himself out over addition and subtraction, 
knowing that Dorothy, the school-mistress of the 


ON THE ROAD 


ior 


troupe, as a rule deeply appreciated these fits of in¬ 
dustry. His efforts were vain. Dorothy was think¬ 
ing of something else. 

Every morning, at the first village they went 
through, she bought a newspaper, looked through 
it and crumpled it up with a movement of irritation, 
as if she had failed to find what she was looking 
for. Saint-Quentin at once picked it up and in his 
turn ran his eye through it. Nothing. Nothing 
about the crime of which she had informed him in 
a few words. Nothing about the arrest of that in¬ 
famous d’Estreicher whom the two of them had 
trussed up on his bed. 

At last on the eighth day, as the sun shines 
after unceasing rain, the smile appeared. It did not 
spring from any outside cause. It was that life re¬ 
covered its grip on her. Dorothy’s spirit was throw¬ 
ing off the distant tragedy in which her father lost 
his life. She became the light-hearted, cheerful, and 
affectionate Dorothy of old. Castor, Pollux, and 
the captain were smothered with kisses. Saint- 
Quentin was thumped and shaken warmly by the 
hand. At the performance they gave under the 
ramparts of Vitre she displayed an astonishing 
energy and gayety. And when the audience had de¬ 
parted, she hustled off her four comrades on one of 
those mad rounds which were for them the most 
exquisite of treats. 

Saint-Quentin wept with joy: 

“I thought you didn’t love us any more,” he said. 

“Why shouldn’t I love my four brats any more?” 

“Because you’re a princess.” 

“Wasn’t I a princess before, idiot?” 


102 


THE SECRET TOMB 


In taking them through the narrow streets of old 
Vitre, amid the huddle of wooden houses, roofed 
with rough tiles, by fits and starts she told them for 
the first time about her early years. 

She had always been happy, never having known 
shackles, boredom, or discipline, things which cramp 
the free instincts and deform the disposition. Not 
that she had been a rebel. She was quite ready to 
submit to rules and obligations, but she had had to 
choose them herself; they had had to be such that her 
child’s reason, already very clear and direct, could 
accept them as just and necessary. 

It had been the same with the education she had 
given herself: she had only learnt from others that 
which it had pleased her to know, extracting from 
the village priest at Argonne all the Latin he knew, 
and letting him keep his catechism to himself; learn¬ 
ing many things w T ith the schoolmaster, many others 
from the books she borrowed, and very many more 
from the old couple who farmed her father’s land, 
in whose charge her parents had left her. 

“I owe most to those two,” she said. “But for 
them I should not know what a bird is, or a plant, 
or a tree—the meaning of real things.” 

“It wasn’t them, however, who taught you to 
dance on a tight rope and manage a circus,” said 
Saint-Quentin, chaffing her. 

“I’ve always danced on the tight rope. Some 
people are born poets. I was born a rope-dancer. 
Dancing is part of me. I get that from my mother 
who was by no means a theatrical star, but simply a 
fine little dancer, a dancing-girl of the music-halls 
and the English circus. I see her still. She was 


ON THE ROAD 


103 

adorable; she could never keep still; and she loved 
stuffs of gorgeous colors . . . and beautiful jewels 
even more.” 

“Like you,” said Saint-Quentin in a low voice. 

“Like me,” she said. “Yes: I take an extravagant 
pleasure in handling them and looking at them. I 
love things that shine. All these stones throw out 
flames which dazzle me. I should like to be very 
rich in order to have very fine ones that I should 
wear always—on my fingers and round my neck.” 

“And since you will never be rich?” 

“Then I shall do without them.” 

For all that she had been brought up anyhow, 
deprived of mentors and good advice, having only 
before her eyes as example the frivolous life her 
parents led, she had acquired strong moral princi¬ 
ples, always maintained a considerable natural 
dignity, and remained untroubled by the reproaches 
of conscience. That which is evil is evil—no traffic 
in it. 

“One is happy,” she said, “when one is in perfect 
agreement with good people. I am a good girl. 
If one lets one’s self be guilty of a doubtful action, 
one repeats it without knowing it and one ends by 
yielding to temptation as one picks flowers and fruit 
over the hedge by the roadside.” 

Dorothy did not pick flowers and fruit over the 
hedge. 

For a long while she went on telling them all 
about herself. Saint-Quentin listened open-mouthed. 

“Goodness! Wherever did you learn all that? 
You’re always surprising me, Dorothy. And then 
how do you guess what you do guess? Guess what 


104 THE SECRET TOMB 

is passing in people’s minds? The other day at 
Roborey, I didn’t understand what was going on, 
not a scrap of it.” 

“Ah, that’s quite another matter. It’s a need to 
combine, to organize, to command, a need to under¬ 
take and to succeed. When I was a child I gathered 
together all the urchins in the village and formed 
bands. I was always the chief of the band. Only 
the others used to rob the farm-yards and kitchen- 
gardens, and,go poaching. With me, it was quite 
the opposite. We used to form a league against 
an evil-doer and hunt for the sheep or duck stolen 
from an old woman, or again we exercised our wits 
in making inquiries. Oh those inquiries! They 
were my strong point. Before the police could be 
informed, I would unravel an affair in such a way 
that the country people roundabout came to consult 
the little girl of thirteen or fourteen that I was. ‘A 
perfect little witch,’ they used to say. Goodness, 
no! You know as well as I, Saint-Quentin, if I 
sometimes play the clairvoyant or tell fortunes by 
cards, everything I tell people I arrive at from facts 
which I observe and interpret. And I also arrive at 
those facts, I must admit, by a kind of intuition 
which shows me things under an aspect which does 
not at once appear to other people. Yes, very often 
I see, before comprehending. Then, most compli¬ 
cated affairs appear to me, at the first glance, very 
simple, and I am always astonished that no one has 
picked out such and such a detail which contains 
in it the whole of the truth.” 

Saint-Quentin, convinced, reflected. He threw 
back his head: 


ON THE ROAD 


105 


“That’s it! That’s it! Nothing escapes you; 
you think of everything. And that’s how it came 
about that the earrings, instead of having been 
stolen by Saint-Quentin, were stolen by d’Estreicher. 
And it is d’Estreicher and not Saint-Quentin who 
will go to prison because you willed it so.” 

She began to laugh: 

“Perhaps I did will it so. But Justice shows no 
sign of submitting to my will. The newspapers do 
not speak of anything happening. There is no men¬ 
tion of the drama of Roborey.” 

“Then what has become of that scoundrel?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“And won’t you be able to learn?” 

“Yes,” she said confidently. 

“How?” 

“From Raoul Davernoie.” 

“You’re going to see him then?” 

“I’ve written to him.” 

“Where to?” 

“At Roborey.” 

“He answered you.” 

“Yes—a telegram which I went to the Post Office 
to find before the performance.” 

“And he’s going to meet us?” 

“Yes. On leaving Roborey and returning home, 
he is to meet us at Vitre at about three o’clock. It’s 
three now.” 

They had climbed up to a point in the city from 
which one had a view of a road which wound in 
and out among meadows and woods. 

“There,” she said. “His car ought not to be long 
coming into sight. That’s his road.” 


io 6 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“You really believe-” 

“I really believe that that excellent young fellow 
will not miss an opportunity of seeing me again,” 
she said, smiling. 

Saint-Quentin, always rather jealous and easily 
upset, sighed: 

“All the people you talk to are like that, obliging 
and full of attention.” 

They waited several minutes. A car came into 
sight between two hedges. They went forward and 
so came close to the caravan round which the three 
urchins were playing. 

Presently the car came up the ascent and emerged 
from a turning, driven by Raoul Davernoie. Run¬ 
ning to meet him and preventing him by a gesture 
from getting out of the car, Dorothy called out to 
him: 

“Well, what has happened? Arrested?” 

“Who? D’Estreicher?” said Raoul, a little taken 
aback by this greeting. 

“D’Estreicher of course . . . He has been 
handed over to the police, hasn’t he? He’s under 
lock and key?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“He escaped.” 

The answer gave her a shock. 

“D’Estreicher free! . . . Free to act! . . . 
It’s frightful!” 

And under her breath she muttered: 

“Good heavens! Why—why didn’t I stay? I 
should have prevented this escape.” 

But repining was of no avail and Dorothy was 



ON THE ROAD 


107 

not the girl to waste much time on it. Without 
further delay she began to question the young man. 

“Why did you stay on at the chateau?” 

“To be exact—because of d’Estreicher.” 

“Granted. But an hour after his escape you ought 
to have started for home.” 

“For what reason?” 

“Your grandfather ... I warned you at Ro- 
borey.” 

Raoul Davernoie protested: 

“First of all I have written to him to be on his 
guard for reasons which I would explain to him. 
And then, as a matter of fact, the risk that he runs 
is a trifle problematical.” 

“In what way? He is the possessor of that indis¬ 
pensable key to the treasure, the gold medal. 
D’Estreicher knows it. And you do not believe in 
his danger.” 

“But this key to the treasure, d’Estreicher also 
possesses it, since on the day he murdered your 
father, he stole the gold medal from him.” 

Dorothy stood beside the door of the car, her 
hand on the handle to prevent Raoul from opening 
it. 

“Start at once, I beg you. I certainly don’t under¬ 
stand the whole of the affair. Is d’Estreicher, who 
already is the possessor of the medal, going to try 
to steal a second? Has the one he stole from my 
father been stolen from him by an accomplice? As 
yet I don’t know anything about it. But I am cer¬ 
tain that from now on the real ground of the strug¬ 
gle is younder, at your home. I’m so sure of it that 
I’m going there myself as well. Look: here is my 


THE SECRET TOMB 


‘108 

road-map. Hillocks Manor near Clisson—still 
nearly a hundred miles to go—eight stages for the 
caravan. Be off; you will get there to-night. I shall 
be there in eight days.” 

Dominated by her, he gave way. 

“Perhaps you’re right. I ought to have thought 
of all this myself—especially since my father will 
be alone to-night.” 

“Alone?” 

“Yes. All the servants are keeping holiday. One 
of them is getting married at a neighboring village.” 

She started. 

“Does d’Estreicher know?” 

“I think so. I fancy I spoke of this fete before 
him, during my stay at Roborey.” 

“And when did he escape?” 

“The day before yesterday.” 

“So since the day before yesterday-” 

She did not finish the sentence. She ran to the 
caravan, up the steps, into it. Almost on the in¬ 
stant she came out of it with a small suit-case and 
a cloak. 

“I’m off,” she said. “I’m coming with you. There 
isn’t a moment to be lost!” 

She cranked up the engine herself, giving her 
orders the while: 

“I give the car and the three children into your 
charge, Saint-Quentin. Follow the red line I have 
drawn on the map. Double stages—no perform¬ 
ances. You can be there in five days.” 

She took the seat beside Davernoie. The car was 
already starting when she caught up the captain 
who was stretching out his hands to her. She 



ON THE ROAD 


i °9 

dropped him among the portmanteaux and bags in 
the tonneau. 

“There—keep quiet. Au revoir, Saint-Quentin, 
Castor and Pollux—no fighting!” 

She waved good-bye to them. 

The whole scene had not lasted three minutes. 

Raoul Davernoie’s car was by way of being an 
old, old model. Therefore its pace was but 
moderate, and Raoul, delighted to be taking with 
him this charming creature, who was also his cousin, 
and his relations with whom, thanks to what had 
happened, were uncommonly intimate, was able to 
relate in detail what had taken place, the manner of 
their finding d'Estreicher, and the incidents of his 
captivity. 

“What saved him,” said he, “was a rather deep 
wound he had made in his head by striking it against 
the iron bed-head in his efforts to rid himself of 
his bonds. He lost a lot of blood. Fever declared 
itself; and my cousin de Chagny—you must have 
noticed that he is of a timid disposition—at once 
said to us: 

“ ‘That gives us time.’ ” 

“Time for what?” I asked him. 

“ ‘Time to think things over. You understand 
clearly enough that all this is going to give rise to 
an unheard-of scandal, and one which, for the honor 
of our families, we might perhaps be able to 
avoid.’ ” 

“I opposed any delay. I wanted them to tele¬ 
phone at once to the police. But de Chagny was 
in his own house, you know. And the days passed 
waiting for him to come to a decision which he could 


no 


THE SECRET TOMB 

not bring himself to make. They had told the ser¬ 
vants that d’Estreicher was ill. Only the major- 
domo was in our confidence, brought him his food, 
and kept guard over him. Besides, the prisoner 
seemed so feeble. You would have declared that 
he had no strength left. How was one to distrust so 
sick a man?” 

Dorothy asked: 

“But what explanation of his conduct did he 
give r 

“None, because we didn’t question him.” 

“Didn’t he speak of me? Didn’t he make any 
accusations against me?” 

“No. He went on playing the part of a sick man, 
prostrated by pain and fever. During this time de 
Chagny wrote to Paris for information about him, 
for after all, his relations with his cousin only went 
back as far as 1915. 

“Three days ago we received a telegram which 
said : 

“ ‘A very dangerous man. Wanted by the police. 
Letters follows / 

“At once de Cragny came to a decision and the 
day before yesterday, in the morning, he telephoned 
to the police. When the inspector arrived, he was 
too late. D’Estreicher had fled.” 

“Doubtless through the window of a pantry which 
looks down on the ravine?” said Dorothy. 

“Yes, and down a fissure in the face of the cliff. 
How did you know?” 

“It was the way Saint-Quentin and I took to get 
at d’Estreicher.” 


ON THE ROAD hi 

And forthwith, cutting short any questions, she 
added: 

“Well, what was the information you got about 
him?” 

“Extremely serious. Antoine d’Estreicher, for¬ 
merly a naval officer, was dismissed the service for 
theft. Later, prosecuted for being an accomplice 
in a case of murder, he was released for lack of evi¬ 
dence. At the beginning of the war he deserted. 
Evidence of it has come to hand and a fortnight 
ago an inquiry into the matter was begun. During 
the war he borrowed the personality of one of his 
relations, who had been dead some years; and it is 
actually under his new name of Maxime d’Estreicher 
that the police are hunting for him.” 

“What a pity! A scoundrel like that! To have 
him in one’s hands and let him go!” 

“We will find him again.” 

“Yes: always providing that it isn’t too late.” 

Raoul quickened their pace. They were going at 
a fair rate, running through the villages without 
slackening their pace and bumping over the cobbles 
of the towns. The night was beginning to fall 
when they reached Nantes, where they had to stop 
to buy petrol. 

“Still an hour’s journey,” said Raoul. 

On the way she made him explain to her the exact 
topography of Hillocks Manor, the direction of 
the road which ran through the orchard to the house, 
the position of the hall and staircase. Moreover, 
he had to give her full information about his grand¬ 
father’s habits, about the old man’s age (he was 
seventy-five), and his dog Goliath—a huge beast, 


11 2 


THE SECRET TOMB 


terrible to look at, with a terrific bark, but quite 
harmless and incapable of defending his master. 

At the big market-town of Clisson, they entered 
La Vendee. When they had nearly reached the 
Manor Raoul would have liked to make a detour 
through the village where they would find the ser¬ 
vants. They could take with them a couple of farm- 
laborers. Dorothy would not hear of it. 

“But, after all,” he exclaimed, “what are you 
afraid of?” 

“Everything,” she replied. “From that man— 
everything. We have no right to lose a minute.” 

They left the main road and turned down a lane 
which was more like a deep-rutted cart-track. 

“There it is, over yonder,” he said. “There is 
a light in the window of his room.” 

Almost at once he stopped the car and jumped 
out of it. A turreted gateway, relic of a far- 
removed epoch, rose in the high wall which encircled 
the estate. The gate was shut. While Raoul was 
engaged in opening it, they heard, dominating the 
dull noise of the engine, the barking of a dog. 

From the clearness of the sound and the direction 
from which it came Raoul declared that Goliath was 
not inside the Manor, but outside it, at the foot of 
the steps, also that he was barking in front of a 
shut-up house. 

“Well, are you never going to open that gate?” 
cried Dorothy. 

He came back hurriedly to her. 

“It’s very disquieting. Some one has shot the 
bolt and turned the key in the lock.” 

“Don’t they always?” 


ON THE ROAD 


113 

“Never. Some stranger has done it. . . . And 
then you hear that barking.’’ 

“Well?” 

“There’s another gate two hundred yards further 

_ „ n 

on. 

“And suppose that’s locked too. No: we must 
act at once.” 

She moved to the steering-wheel and drove the 
car close under the wall a little higher up, to the 
right of the gateway. Then she piled the four 
cushions on the seat and stood on the top of them. 

“Montfaucon!” she called. 

The Captain understood. In half-a-dozen move¬ 
ments he climbed up Dorothy’s back and stood up¬ 
right on her shoulders. With that advantage his 
hands touched the top of the wall. Clinging to it, 
with Dorothy’s help, he pulled himself up. When 
he was astride it, Raoul threw a rope to him. He 
tied one end round his waist, Dorothy held the other. 
In a few seconds the child touched the ground on 
the other side of the wall, and Raoul had barely 
got back to the gate before the key grated in the 
lock and the bolts were drawn. 

Raoul did not get back to the car. He dashed 
across the orchard, followed by Dorothy and the 
Captain. As she ran she said to the child: 

“Go round the house and if you see a ladder 
against it, pull it down!” 

As they expected, they found Goliath on the steps 
scratching at the closed door. They made him stop 
barking and in the silence they heard above them 
outcries and the sound of a struggle. 

Instantly, to frighten the assailant, Raoul fired 


11 4 THE SECRET TOMB 

off his revolver. Then with his latch-key he opened 
the door; and they ran up the stairs. . 

One of the rooms facing them was lighted by two 
lamps. On the floor, face downwards, Raoul’s 
grandfather was writhing and uttering faint, hoarse 

• cries. 

Raoul dropped on his knees beside him. Dorothy 
seized one of the lamps and ran into the room on 
the opposite side of the corridor. She had noticed 
that the door of it was open. 

The room was empty; through the open window 
stuck the top of a ladder. 

She leant out: 

“Montfaucon 1 ” 

“Here I am, mummy,” the child replied. 

“Did you see any one come down the ladder and 
run away?” 

“From a distance, mummy—as I came round the 
corner of the house.” 

“Did you recognize the man?” 

“The man was two, mummy.” 

“Ah, there were two, were there?” 

“Yes . . . another man . . . and the nasty 
gentleman.” 

Raoul’s grandfather was not dead; he was not 
even in any danger of dying. From certain details 
of the conflict it looked as if d’Estreicher and his 
confederate had tried by threats and violence to 
force the old man to reveal what he knew, and 
doubtless to hand over the gold piece. In particular 
his throat showed red finger-marks where they had 
gripped it. Had the ruffian and his confederate 
succeeded at the last moment? 


ON THE ROAD 


ii 5 

The servants were not very late getting back. 
The doctor was summoned and declared that there 
was no fear of any complications. But in the course 
of the next day they found that the old man did not 
answer any questions, did not appear to understand 
them, and only expressed himself by an incompre¬ 
hensible stuttering. 

The agitation, terror, and suffering had been too 
much for him . . . He was mad. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 

In the flat country, in which stands Hillocks Manor, 
a deep gorge has been hollowed out by the river 
Maine. This gorge rings round the meadows and 
orchards and buildings of the Manor. Hillocks, 
humped with rocks and covered with fir-trees, rise 
in a semicircle at the back of the estate, and a 
backwater of the Maine, cutting the ring and isolat¬ 
ing the hillocks, has formed a pleasant lake, which 
reflects the dark stones and red bricks and tiles of 
the ancient building. 

To-day that building is by way of being a farm. 
Part of the ground-floor is used for storerooms and 
barns, evidence of a wider cultivation, formerly flour¬ 
ishing, but very much fallen off since the days when 
Raoul’s grandfather made it his business in life. 

The old Baron, as they called him, had a right to 
the title and to the apostrophe since the property, 
before the Revolution, formed the barony d’Aver- 
noie. A great sportsman, a fine figure of a man, 
and fond of wine and women, he had very little 
liking for work; and his son, Raoul’s father, inherit¬ 
ing this distaste, had in his manner of life shown 
an equal lack of care for the future. 

“I have done what I could, once I was demobil¬ 
ized,” Raoul confided to Dorothy, “to restore pros- 

116 


THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 117 

perity here; and up-hill work it has been. But what 
would you? My father and my grandfather lived 
their lives in the assurance, which evidently sprang 
from those legends you have heard of: ‘One of 
these days we shall be rich. So why worry?’ And 
they did not worry. Actually we are in the hands 
of a money-lender who has bought up all our debts; 
and I have just heard that during my stay at 
Roborey my grandfather signed a bill of sale which 
gives that money-lender the power to turn us out 
of the house in six weeks.” 

He was an excellent young fellow, a trifle slow- 
witted, rather awkward in manner, but of an upright 
disposition, serious and thoughtful. The charm of 
Dorothy had made an instant conquest of him, and 
in spite of an invincible timidity which had always 
prevented him from putting into words his deeper 
feelings, he did not hide either his admiration or 
the fact that she had robbed him of his peace of 
mind. Everything that she said charmed him. 
Everything that she bade him do was done. 

Following her advice he made no secret of the 
assault of which his grandfather had been the victim 
and lodged a complaint against this unknown crimi¬ 
nal. To the people about him he talked openly 
about the fortune which he expected to come to him 
shortly and of the investigations on foot to discover 
a gold medal, the possession of which was the first 
condition of obtaining it. Without revealing 
Dorothy’s name, he did not conceal the fact that 
she was a distant cousin, or the reasons which 
brought her to the Manor. 

Three days later, having screwed double stages 


118 


THE SECRET TOMB 


out of One-eyed Magpie, Saint-Quentin arrived in 
company with Castor and Pollux. Dorothy would 
not hear of any abode but her beloved caravan, 
which was installed in the middle of the court-yard; 
and once more the five comrades settled down to 
their happy, careless life. Castor and Pollux fought 
with less vigor. Saint-Quentin fished in the lake. 
The captain, always immensely consequential, took 
the old baron under his care and related to him and 
to Goliath interminable yarns. 

As for Dorothy, she was observing. They found 
that she wore an air of mystery, keeping her 
thoughts and proceedings to herself. She spent 
hours playing with her comrades superintending 
their exercises. Then, her eyes fixed on the old 
baron, w T ho, accompanied by his faithful dog, with 
tottering gait and dulled eyes, would go and lean 
against a tree in the orchard, she watched everything 
which might be a manifestation of instinct in him 
or of a survival of the past. At other times Raoul 
surprised her in some corner, motionless and silent. 
It seemed to him then as if the whole affair was 
confined to her brain, and that it was there, much 
more than on the estate of Hillocks Manor that 
she was looking for the guiding clue. 

Several days in succession she spent the hours in 
the loft of a granary where there were some book¬ 
shelves, and on them, old newspapers, bundles of 
papers, pamphlets, printed during the last century, 
histories of the district, communal reports, and 
parish records. 

“Well,” asked Raoul, laughing. “Are we get- 


THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 119 

ting on? I have an impression that your eyes are 
beginning to see more clearly.” 

“Perhaps. I won’t say that they aren’t.” 

The eyes of Dorothy! In that combination of 
charming things her face, it was they above every¬ 
thing which held one’s attention. Large, almond- 
shaped and lengthened in the shadow of their black 
lashes, they surprised one by the inconceivable 
diversity of their coloring and expression: of the 
blue which changed like the blue of the sea accord¬ 
ing to the hour and the light; of a blue which seemed 
to vary with the successive thoughts which changed 
her expression. And these eyes, so delightful that 
it seemed that they must always be smiling or laugh¬ 
ing, were in moments of meditation the gravest eyes 
that ever were, when she half-closed and fixed them 
on some image in her mind. 

Raoul, now, only saw through them, and was only 
really interested in what they expressed. The 
fabulous story of the treasure and the medal was 
wholly summed up for him in the charming spectacle 
afforded by two beautiful eyes observant or thought¬ 
ful, troubled or joyful. And perhaps Dorothy 
allowed herself to be observed with a certain satis¬ 
faction. The love of this big, shy young fellow 
touched her by its respectfulness, she who had only 
known hitherto the brutal homage of desire. 

One day she made him take a seat in the little 
boat which was moored to the shore of the lake, and 
letting it drift with the current she said to him: 

“We are drawing near.” 

“Near what?’ he asked, startled. 


120 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“The hour which so many things have so long 
foretold.” 

“You believe ?” 

“I believe that you made no mistake the day on 
which you saw in your grandfather’s hands that 
gold medal in which all the traditions of the family 
seem to be summed up. Unfortunately the poor 
man lost his reason before you were put in 
possession of the facts; and the thread which bound 
the past to the future has been broken.” 

“Then what do you hope for, if we do not find 
that medal? We’ve searched everywhere, his room, 
his clothes, the house, the orchard, and found 
nothing.” 

“It is impossible that he should keep to himself 
forever the answer to the engima. If his reason 
is dead, his instincts survive. An what an instinct 
that is that centuries have been forming! Doubt¬ 
less he has put the coin within reach, or within sight. 
You may be sure that he has hidden it in such a way 
that no execrable piece of bad luck could rob him 
of it without his being aware of it. But don’t worry: 
at the appointed hour some unconscious gesture will 
reveal the truth to us.” 

Raoul objected. 

“But what if d’Estreicher took it from him?” 

“He did not. If he had, we should not have 
heard the noise of the struggle. Your grandfather 
resisted to the end; and it was only our coming 
which put d’Estreicher to flight.” 

“Oh, that ruffian! If only I had him in my 
hands!” exclaimed Raoul. 


THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 121 

The boat was drifting gently. Dorothy said in 
a very low voice, barely moving her lips: 

“Not so loud! He can hear us.” 

“What! What do you mean?” 

“I say that he is close by and that he doesn’t lose 
a single word of what we say,” she went on in the 
same low voice. 

Raoul was dumfounded. 

“But—but—what does it mean? Can you see 
him?” 

“No. But I can feel his presence; and he can 
see us.” 

“Where from?” 

“From some place among the hillocks. I have 
been thinking that this name of Hillocks Manor 
pointed to some inpenetrable hiding-place, and I’ve 
discovered a proof of it in one of those old books, 
which actually speaks of a hiding-place where the 
Vendeans lay hid, and says that it is believed to be 
in the neighborhood of Tiffauges and Clisson.” 

“But how should d’Estreicher have learnt of it?” 

“Remember that the day of the assault your 
grandfather was alone, or believed himself to be 
alone. Strolling among the hillocks, he would have 
disclosed one of the entrances. D’Estreicher was 
watching him at the time. And since then the rascal- 
had been using it as a refuge. 

“Look at the ground, all humps and ravines. On 
the right, on the left, everywhere, there are places 
in the rock for observations, so to speak, from which 
one can hear and see everything that takes place 
inside the boundaries of the estate. D’Estreicher is 
there.” 


122 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“What is he doing ?” 

“He’s searching and, what’s more, he is keeping 
an eye on my investigations. He also—for all that 
I can’t guess exactly the reason—wants the gold 
medal. And he is afraid that I shall get it before 
him.” 

“But we must inform the police!” 

“Not yet. This underground hiding-place should 
have several issues, some of which perhaps run un¬ 
der the river. If we give the ruffian warning, he 
will escape.” 

“Then what’s your plan?” 

“To get him to come out of this lair and trap 
him.” 

“How?” 

“I’ll tell you at the appointed time, and that will 
not be long. I repeat: the hour draws near.” 

“What proof have you?” 

“This,” she said. “I have seen the money-lender, 
Monsieur Voirin, and he showed me the bill of sale. 
If by five o’clock on July 31st Monsieur Voirin, 
who has desired all his life to acquire the Manor, 
has not received the sum of three hundred thousand 
francs in cash or government securities, the Manor 
becomes his property.” 

“I know,” said he. “And it will break my heart 
to go away from here.” 

She protested: 

“There’s no question of your going away from 
here.” 

“Why not? There’s no reason why I should be¬ 
come rich in a month.” 

“Yes, there is a reason, the reason which has 


THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 


123 

always sustained your grandfather, the reason which 
made him act as he did on this occasion, which made 
him say to old Voirin—I repeat the money-lender’s 
words: “Don’t get bucked about this, Voirin. On 
the 31st of July I shall pay you in cash.” This is 
the first time that we are face to face with a pre¬ 
cise fact. Up to now words and a confused tra¬ 
dition. To-day a fact. A fact which proves that, 
according to your grandfather all the legends which 
turn round these promised riches come to a head 
on a certain day in the month of July.” 

The boat touched the bank. Dorothy sprang 
lightly ashore and cried without fear of being heard: 

“Raoul, to-day’s the 27th of June. In a few 
weeks you will be rich; and I too. And d’Estreicher 
will be hanged high and dry as I predicted to his 
face.” 

That very evening Dorothy slipped out of the 
Manor and furtively made her way to a lane which 
ran between very tall hedges. After an hour’s 
walking she came to a little garden at the bottom 
of which a light was shining. 

Her private investigations had brought to her 
knowledge the name of an old lady, Juliet Assire, 
whom the gossip of the countryside declared to be 
one of the old flames of the Baron. Before his at¬ 
tack, the Baron paid her a visit, for all that she was 
deaf, in poor health, and rather feeble-witted. 
Moreover, thanks to the lack of discretion of the 
maid who looked after her and whom Saint-Quentin 
had questioned, Dorothy had learnt that Juliet 
Assire was the possessor of a medal of the kind 
they were searching for at the Manor. 


124 


THE SECRET TOMB 


Dorothy had formed the plan of taking advantage 
of the maid’s weekly evening out to knock at the 
door and question Juliet Assire. But Fortune de¬ 
cided otherwise. The door w r as not locked, and 
when she stepped over the threshold of the low and 
comfortable sitting-room, she perceived the old lady 
asleep in the lamplight, her head bent over the can¬ 
vas which she was engaged in embroidering. 

“Suppose I look for it?” thought Dorothy. 
“What’s the use of asking her questions she won’t 
answer?” 

She looked round her, examined the prints hang¬ 
ing on the wall, the clock under its glass case, the 
candlesticks. 

Further on an inner staircase led up to the bed¬ 
rooms. She was moving towards it when the door 
creaked. On the instant she was certain that 
d’Estreicher was about to appear. Had he followed 
her? . . . Had he by any chance brought her there 
by a combination of machinations? She was fright¬ 
ened and thought only of flight . . . The staircase? 
The rooms on the first floor . . . She hadn’t the 
time! Near her was a glass door. . . . Doubtless 
it led to the kitchen. . . . And from there to the 
back door through which she could escape. 

She went through it and at once found out her 
mistake. She was in a dark closet, a cupboard 
rather, against the boards of which she had to flat¬ 
ten herself before she could get the door shut. She 
found herself a prisoner. 

At that moment the door of the room opened, 
very quietly. Two men came cautiously into it; and 
immediately one of them whispered: 


125 


THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 

“The old woman’s asleep.” 

Through the glass, which was covered by a torn 
curtain, Dorothy easily recognized d’Estreicher, in 
spite of his turned-up coat-collar and the flaps of 
his cap, which were tied under his chin. His con¬ 
federate in like manner had hidden half his face 
in a muffler. 

“That damsel does make you play the fool,” he 
said. 

“Play the fool? Not a bit of it!” growled 
d’Estreicher. “I’m keeping an eye on her, that’s 
all.” 

“Rot! You’re always shadowing her. You’re 
losing your head about her . . . You’ll go on doing 
it till the day she helps you to lose it for good.” 

“I don’t say, no. She nearly succeeded in doing 
it at Roberey. But I need her.” 

“What for?” 

“For the medal. She’s the only person capable of 
laying her hands on it.” 

“Not here—in any case. We’ve already searched 
the house twice.” 

“Badly, without a doubt, since she is coming to 
it. At least when we caught sight of her she was 
certainly coming in this direction. The chatter of 
the maid has sent her here; and she has chosen the 
night when the old woman would be alone.” 

“You are stuck on your little pet.” 

“I’m stuck on her,” growled d’Estreicher. “Only 
let me lay my hands on her, and I swear the little 
devil won’t forget it in a hurry!” 

Dorothy shivered. There was in the accents of 


126 


THE SECRET TOMB 

this man a hate and at the same time a violence of 
desire which terrified her. 

He was silent, posted behind the door, listening 
for her coming. 

Several minutes passed. Juliet Assire still slept, 
her hand hanging lower and lower over her work. 

At last d’Estreicher muttered: 

“She isn’t coming. She must have turned off 
somewhere.” 

“Ah well, let’s clear out,” said his accomplice. 

“No.” 

“Have you got an idea?” 

“A determination—to find the medal.” 

“But since we’ve already searched the house 
twice-” 

“We went about it the wong way. We must 
change our methods. . . . All the worse for the old 
woman!” 

He banged the table at the risk of waking Juliet 
Assire. 

“After all, it’s too silly! The maid distinctly 
said: ‘There’s a medal in the house, the kind of 
thing they’re looking for at the Manor.’ Then let’s 
make use of the opportunity, what? What failed in 
the case of the Baron may succeed to-day.” 

“What? You’d-” 

“Make her speak—yes. As I tried to make the 
Baron speak. Only, she’s a woman, she is.” 

D’Estreicher had taken off his cap. His evil face 
wore an expression of savage cruelty. He went to 
the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. 
Then he came back to the arm-chair in which the 
good lady was sleeping, gazed at her a moment and 




THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR 


127 

of a sudden fell upon her, gripping her throat, and 
thrust her backwards against the back of the chair. 

His confederate chuckled: 

“You needn’t give yourself all that trouble. If 
you squeeze too hard, you’ll kill the poor old thing.” 

D’Estreicher opened his fingers a little. The old 
woman opened her eyes wide and uttered a low 
groan. 

“Speak I” d’Estreicher commanded. “The Baron 
intrusted a medal to you. Where have you put 
it?” 

Juliet Assire did not clearly understand what was 
happening to her. She struggled. Exasperated, he 
shook her. 

“Will you prattle? Hey? Where’s your old 
sweetheart’s medal? He gave it to you all right. 
Don’t say he didn’t, you old hag! Your maid’s 
telling everybody who cares to listen to her. Come, 
speak up. If you don’t-” 

He picked one of the iron fire-dogs with copper 
knobs from the hearthstone and brandished it cry¬ 
ing: 

“One . . . two . . . three. ... At twenty I’ll 
crack your skull!” 



CHAPTER VIII 


ON THE IRON WIRE 

The door behind which Dorothy was hiding her¬ 
self shut badly. Having pushed it to gently, she 
not only saw but heard everything that took place, 
except that the face of Juliet Assire remained hid¬ 
den from her. The ruffian’s threat did not trouble 
her much, for she knew that he would not put it 
into execution. In fact d’Estreicher counted up to 
twenty without the old woman having uttered a 
word. But her resistance infuriated him to such 
a degree that, dropping the mass of iron, he seized 
the hand of Juliet Assire and twisted it violently. 
Juliet Assire yelled with pain. 

“Ah, you’re beginning to understand, are you?” 
he said. “Perhaps you’ll answer . . . Where is 
the medal?” 

She was silent. 

He gave her hand another twist. 

The old woman fell on her knees and begged for 
mercy incoherently. 

“Speak!” he cried. “Speak! I’ll go on twisting 
till you speak!” 

She stammered several syllables. 

“What’s that you say? Speak more distinctly, 
will you? Do you want me to give it another 
twist?” 


128 


ON THE IRON WIRE 129 

“No . . . no,” she implored. “It’s there . . . 
at the Manor ... in the river.” 

“In the river? What nonsense! You threw it 
into the river? You’re laughing at me !” 

He held her down with one knee on her chest, 
their hands clenched round one another. From her 
post of observation Dorothy watched them, horror- 
stricken, powerless against these two men, but 
nevertheless unable to resign herself to inaction. 

“Then I’ll twist it, what?” growled the ruffian. 
“You prefer it to speaking?” 

He made a quick movement which drew a cry 
from Juliet Assire. And all at once she raised her¬ 
self, showed her face convulsed with terror, moved 
her lips, and succeeded in stuttering: 

“The c—c—cupboard . . . the cupboard . . . 
the flagstones.” 

The sentence was never finished, though the mouth 
continued to move, but a strange thing happened: 
her frightful face little by little grew calm, assumed 
an ineffable serenity, became happy, smiling; and of 
a sudden Juliet Assire burst out laughing. She no 
longer felt the torture of her twisted wrist and she 
laughed gently, not jerkily, with an expression of 
beatitude. 

She was mad. 

“You’ve no luck,” said his confederate in a mock¬ 
ing tone. “Directly you try to make people speak, 
they collapse—the Baron, cracked; his sweetheart, 
mad as a hatter. You’re doing well.” 

The exasperated d’Estreicher thrust away the old 
woman who stumbled and turning fell down behind 


I 3 0 THE SECRET TOMB 

an arm-chair quite close to Dorothy, and cried 
furiously. 

“You’re right, my luck’s out. But this time per¬ 
haps we’ve found a lode. Before her brain gave 
she spoke of a cupboard and flagstones. Which? 
This one or that? They’re both paved with flags?” 

He pointed first to the kind of closet in which 
Dorothy was hiding and then to a cupboard on 
the other side of the fireplace. 

“I’ll begin with this cupboard. You start on that 
one,” he said. “Or rather, no—come and help me; 
we’ll go through this one thoroughly first.” 

He knelt down near the fireplace, opened the 
cupboard door, and with the poker got to work on 
one of the cracks between the flags of its floor which 
his accomplice tried to raise. 

Dorothy lost no time. She knew that they were 
coming to the closet and that she was lost if she 
did not fly. The old woman, stretched out close to 
her, was laughing gently and then grew silent as the 
men worked on. 

Hidden by the arm-chair, Dorothy slipped noise¬ 
lessly out of the cupboard, took off the lace cap 
which covered the hair of Juliet Assire and put it 
on her own head. Then she took her spectacles, 
then her shawl, put it round her shoulders, and suc¬ 
ceeded in hiding her figure with a big table-cloth of 
black serge. At that moment Juliet fell silent. On 
the instant Dorothy took up her even, joyous laugh¬ 
ter. She rose, and stooping like an old woman, 
ambled across the room. 

D’Estreicher growled: “What’s the old lunatic 
up to? Mind she doesn’t get away.” 


ON THE IRON WIRE 


131 

“How can she get away?” asked his confederate. 
‘‘You’ve got the key in your pocket.” 

“The window.” 

“Much too high. Besides she doesn’t want to 
leave the cottage.” 

Dorothy slipped in front of the window, the sill 
of which, uncommonly high up, was on a level with 
her eyes. The shutters were not closed. With a 
slow movement she succeeded in turning the catch. 
Then she paused. She knew that directly it was 
opened the window would let in the fresh air and 
the noises outside, and give the ruffians warning. 
In a few seconds she calculated and analyzed the 
movements she would need to make. Sure of her¬ 
self and relying on her extraordinary agility, she 
took a look at her enemies; then swiftly, without a 
single mistake or a second’s hesitation, she threw 
the window wide, jumped on to the sill, and from 
it into the garden. 

There came two shouts together, then a hubbub 
of cries. But it took the two men time to under¬ 
stand, to stumble upon the body of the real Juliet 
and discover it was she, to unlock the door. Dorothy 
made use of it. Too clever to escape down the 
garden and through the gate, she ran round the 
cottage, jumped down a slope, scratched herself 
among the thorns of a hedge, and came out into the 
fields. 

As she did so pistol-shots rang out. D’Estreicher 
and his confederate were firing at the shadows. 

When Dorothy had rejoined Raoul and the chil¬ 
dren, who, alarmed by her absence, were waiting 


THE SECRET TOMB 


132 

for her at the door of the caravan, and had told 
them briefly about her expedition, she ended: 

“And now we’re going to make an end of it. The 
final hand will be played in exactly a week from 
to-day.” 

These few days were very sweet to the two young 
people. While still remaining shy, Raoul grew 
bolder in his talks with her and let her see more 
clearly the depths of his nature, at once serious and 
impassioned. Dorothy abandoned herself with a 
certain joy to this love, of the sincerity of which she 
was fully conscious. Deeply disturbed, Saint- 
Quentin and his comrades grew uncommonly 
gloomy. 

The captain tossed his'head and said: 

“Dorothy, I think I like this one less than the 
nasty gentleman, and if you’d listen to me . . .” 

“What should we do, my lamb?” 

“We’d harness One-eye’ Magpie and go away.” 

“And the treasure? You know we’re hunting for 
treasure.” 

“You’re the treasure, mummy. And I’m afraid 
that they’ll take you away from us.” 

“Don’t you worry, my child. My four children 
will always come first.” 

But the four children did worry. The sense of 
danger weighed on them. In this confined space, 
between the walls of Hillocks Manor they breathed 
a heavy atmosphere which troubled them. Raoul 
was the chief danger: but another danger was little 
by little taking form in their minds: twice they saw 
the outline of a man moving stealthily among the 
thickets of the hillocks in the dusk. 


ON THE IRON WIRE 133 

On the 30th of June, Dorothy begged Raoul to 
give all his staff a holiday next day. It was the day 
of the great religious fete at Clisson. Three of the 
stoutest of the servants, armed with guns, were 
ordered to come back surreptitiously at four in the 
afternoon and wait near a little inn, Masson Inn, 
a quarter of a mile from the Manor. 

Next day Dorothy seemed in higher spirits than 
ever. She danced jigs in the court-yard and sang 
English songs. She sang others in the boat, in which 
she had asked Raoul to row her, and then behaved 
so wildly, that several times they just missed cap¬ 
sizing. In this way it came about that in juggling 
with three coral bracelets she let one of them fall 
into the water. She wanted to recover it, dipped 
her bare arm in the water as high as the shoulder, 
and remained motionless, her head bent over the 
lake, as if she was considering carefully something 
she saw on its bottom. 

“What are you looking at like that?” said Raoul. 

“There has been no rain for a long while, the 
lake is low, and one can see more distinctly the 
stones and pebbles on the bottom. Now I’ve 
already noticed that some of the stones are arranged 
in a certain pattern. Look.” 

“Undoubtedly,” he said. “And they’ve hewn 
stones, shaped. One might fancy that they formed 
huge letters. Have you noticed it?” 

“Yes. And one can guess the words that those 
letters form : ‘In robore fortuna / At the mayor’s 
office I’ve studied an old map of the neighborhood. 
Here, where we are, was formerly the principal 
lawn of a sunken garden, and on this very lawn one 


i 3 4 THE SECRET TOMB 

of your ancestors had this device inscribed in blocks 
of stone. Since then some one has let in the water 
of the Maine over the sunken garden. The pool has 
taken the place of the lawn. The device is hidden. ’ 

And she added between her teeth: 

“And so are the few words and the figures below 
the device, which I have not yet been able to see. 
And it’s that which interests me. Do you see 
them?” 

“Yes. But indistinctly.” 

“That’s just it. We’re too near them. We need 
to look at them from a height.” 

“Let’s climb up on the hillocks.” 

“No use. The slope—the water would blur the 
image.” 

“Then,” said he, laughing, “we must mount above 
them in an aeroplane.” 

At lunch-time they parted. After the meal, Raoul 
superintended the departure of the char-a-bancs, 
which were taking all the staff of the Manor to 
Clisson, then he took his way to the pool where he 
saw Dorothy’s little troupe hard at work on the bank. 
The captain, always the man of affairs, was running 
to and fro somewhat in the manner of a Gugusse. 
The others were carrying out exactly Dorothy’s 
instructions. 

When it was all over, a sufficiently thick iron wire 
was stretched above the lake at a height of ten or 
twelve feet, fastened at one end to the gable of a 
barn, at the other to a ring affixed to a rock among 
the hillocks. 

“Hang it all!” he said. “It looks to me as if 


ON THE IRON WIRE 


135 

you’d made preparations for one of your circus 
turns.” 

“You’re right,” she replied gayly. “Having no 
aeroplane I fall back on my aerial rope-walking.” 

“What? Is that what you intend to do?” he ex¬ 
claimed in anxious accents. “But you’re bound to 
fall.” 

“I can swim.” 

“No, no. I refuse to allow it.” 

“By what right?” 

“You haven’t even a balancing-pole.” 

“A balancing-pole?” she said, running off. “And 
what next? A net? A safety-rope?” 

She climped up the ladder inside the barn and 
appeared on the edge of the roof. She was laugh¬ 
ing, as was her custom when she began her perform¬ 
ance before a crowd. She was dressed in a silk 
frock, with broad white and red stripes, a scarlet 
silk handkerchief was crossed over her chest. 

Raoul was in a state of feverish excitement. 

The captain went to him. 

“Do you want to help mummy, Dorothy?” he said 
in a confidential tone. 

‘‘Certainly I do.” 

“Well, go away, monsieur.” 

Dorothy stretched out her leg. Her foot, which 
was bare in a cloth sandal divided at the big toe, 
tried the wire, as a bather’s foot tries the coldness 
of the water. And then she quickly stepped on to it, 
made several steps, sliding, and stopped. 

She saluted right and left, pretending to believe 
herself in the presence of a large audience, and came 
sliding forward again with a regular, rhythmic move- 


THE SECRET TOMB 


136 

ment of her legs and a swaying of her bust and arms 
which balanced her like the beating of the wings of 
a bird. So she arrived above the pool. The wire, 
slackened, bent under her weight and jerked up¬ 
wards. A second time she stopped, when she was 
over the middle of the pool. 

This was the hardest part of her undertaking. 
She was no longer able to hook, so to speak, her 
gaze on a fixed point among the hillocks, and lend 
her balance the support of something stable. She 
had to lower her eyes and try to read, in the moving 
and glittering water, repelling the fascination of 
the sun’s reflection, the words and the figures. A 
terribly dangerous task! She had to essay it several 
times and to rise upright the very moment she found 
herself bending over the void. A minute or two 
passed, minutes of veritable anguish. She brought 
them to an end by a salute with both arms, stretch¬ 
ing them out with even gracefulness, and a cry of 
victory; then she at once walked on again. 

Raoul had crossed the bridge which spans the end 
of the pool and he was already on a kind of plat¬ 
form among the hillocks, at which the wire ended. 
She was struck by his paleness and touched by his 
anxiety on her account. 

“Goodness,” she said, gripping his hand. “Were 
you as frightened as that on my account? ... If 
I’d only known! . . . And yet, no” : she went on. 
“Even if I had known, I should have made the ex¬ 
periment, so certain was I of the result.” 

“Well?” he said. 

“Well, I read the device distinctly, and the date 
under it, which we couldn’t make out—the 12th of 


ON THE IRON WIRE 137 

July, 1921. We know now that the 12th of July 
of this year is the great day foretold so many years 
ago. But there’s something better, I fancy.” 

• She called Saint-Quentin to her and said some 
words to him in a low voice. Saint-Quentin ran to 
the caravan and a few minutes came out of it in his 
acrobat’s tights. He stepped into the boat with 
Dorothy, who rowed it to the middle of the pool. 
He slipped quickly into the water and dived. Twice 
he came up to receive more exact instructions from 
Dorothy. At last, the third time he came up, he 
cried: 

“Here it is, mummy!” 

He tossed into the boat a somewhat heavy ob¬ 
ject. Dorothy snatched it up, examined it, and when 
they reached the bank, handed it to Raoul. It was 
a metal disc, of rusted iron or copper, of the size 
of a saucer, and convex—like an enormous watch. 
It must have been formed of two plates joined to¬ 
gether, but the edges of these plates had been 
soldered together so that one could not open it. 

Dorothy rubbed one of its faces and pointed out 
to Raoul with her finger the deeply engraved word: 
“Fortuna.” 

“I was not mistaken,” she said, “and poor old 
Juliet Assire was speaking the truth, in speaking 
first of the river. During one of their last meetings 
the Baron must have thrown in here the gold medal 
in its metal case.” 

“But why?” 

“Didn’t you write to him from Roborey, after I 
left, to be on his guard?” 

“Yes.” 


THE SECRET TOMB 


138 

“In that case what better hiding-place could he 
find for the medal till the day came for him to use 
it than the bottom of the pool? The first boy who 
came along could fish it out for him.” 

Joyously she tossed the disc in the air and juggled 
with it and three pebbles. Then she caught hold 
of the shivering Saint-Quentin, very scraggy in his 
wet tights, and with the other three boys danced 
round the platform, singing the lay of “The 
Recovered Medal.” 

At the end of his breath the captain made the 
observation that there was a fete at Clisson and that 
they might very well go there to celebrate their 
success. 

“Let’s harness One-eye’ Magpie.” 

Dorothy approved of it. 

“Excellent! But One-eyed Magpie’s too slow. 
What about your car, Raoul?” 

They hurried back to the Manor. Saint-Quentin 
went to change his costume. Raoul set his engine 
going and brought the car out of the garage. While 
the three boys were getting into it, he went to 
Dorothy, who had sat down at a little table on the 
terrace which ran the length of the building. 

“Are you ready?” he asked. 

She said: 

“But I never had any intention of going with you. 
To-day you’re going to be nursemaid.” 

He was not greatly surprised. Since early morn¬ 
ing he had had an odd feeling that everything that 
happened was not quite natural. The incidents fol¬ 
lowed one another in such perfect sequence and with 
a logic and exactness foreign to actuality. One 


ON THE IRON WIRE 139 

might have said that they were scenes in a too-well- 
made play, of which it would have been easy, with a 
little experience of the playwright’s art, to analyze 
the construction and the tricks. Certainly, without 
knowing Dorothy’s game, he guessed the denoue¬ 
ment she proposed to bring about—the capture of 
d’Estreicher. But by means of what stratagem? 

‘‘Don’t question me,” she said. “We are 
watched. So no heroics, no remonstrances. Listen” : 

She was amusing herself by spinning the disk on 
the table and quite calmly she outlined her plan and 
her maneuvers: 

“It’s like this. A day or two ago I wrote, in 
your name, to the Public Prosecutor, advising him 
that our friend d’Estreicher, for whom the police are 
hunting, guilty of attempts to murder Baron Daver- 
noie and Madame Juliet Assire, would be at Hillocks 
Manor to-day. I asked him to send two detectives 
who would find you at Masson Inn at four o’clock. 
It’s now a quarter to four. Your three servants 
will be there too. So off you go.” 

“What am I to do?” 

“Come back quickly with the two detectives and 
your three servants, not by the main road, but by 
the paths Saint-Quentin and the three boys will point 
out to you. At the end of them you will find ladders 
ready. You will set them up against the wall. 
D’Estreicher and his confederate will be there. You 
will cover them with your guns while the detectives 
arrest them.” 

“Are you sure that d’Estreicher will come out of 
the hillocks—if it’s the fact that the hillocks are 
his hiding-place?” 


140 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Quite sure. Here is the medal. He knows 
that it is in my hands. How can he help seizing the 
opportunity of taking it now that we are on the eve 
of the great event.” 

She expressed herself with a disconcerting calm¬ 
ness. For all that she was exposing herself alone to 
all the menace of a combat which promised to be for¬ 
midable, she had not the faintest air of being in 
danger. Indeed, such was her indifference to the 
risk she was running that, when the old Baron went 
past them and into the Manor, followed by his faith¬ 
ful Goliath, she imparted to Raoul some results of 
her observations. 

“Have you noticed that for the last day or two 
that your grandfather has been ill at ease? He too 
is instinctively aware that the great event is at hand, 
and he wants to act. He is pulling himself together 
and struggling against the disease which paralyzes 
him in the very hour of action.” 

In spite of everything, Raoul hesitated. The idea 
of leaving her to face d’Estreicher alone was in¬ 
finitely painful to him. 

“One question,” he said. 

“Only one then, for you’ve no time to lose.” 

“You made all your preparations for to-day. The 
police are informed, the servants warned, the 
rendezvous fixed. Good. But nevertheless you 
couldn’t know that the discovery of this disc would 
take place just an hour before that rendezvous.” 

“Excellent, Raoul; I congratulate you. You’ve 
put your finger on the weak point in my explanation. 
But I can’t tell you anthing more at the moment.” 

“Nevertheless-” 



ON THE IRON WIRE 141 

“Do as I ask you, Raoul. You know that I don’t 
act at random.” 

Dorothy’s confidence, her boldness, the simplicity 
of her plan, her quiet smile, all inspired him with 
such trust in her judgment that he raised no more 
objections. 

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll go.” 

“That’s right,” she said, laughing. “You have 
faith. In that case make haste and come back 
quickly, for d’Estreicher will come here not only to 
get hold of the medal but also for something on 
which perhaps he is equally keen.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Me.” 

This was a suggestion which hastened the young 
man’s decision. The car started and crossed the 
orchard. Saint-Quentin opened the big gate and 
shut it again as soon as the car had gone through it. 

Dorothy was alone; and she was to remain alone 
and defenceless for as long she reckoned, if her cal¬ 
culations were correct, as twelve to fifteen minutes. 

Keeping her back turned to the hillocks, she did 
not stir from her chair. She appeared to be very 
busy with the disc, testing the soldering, like one 
who seeks to discover the secret or the weak point 
of a piece of mechanism. But with her ears, all 
her nerves on edge, she tried to catch every sound 
or rustle that the breeze might bring her. 

By turns she was sustained by an unshakable cer¬ 
tainty, or attacked by discouraging doubts. Yes: 
d’Estreicher was bound to come. She could not ad¬ 
mit to herself that he might not come. The medal 


THE SECRET TOMB 


142 

would draw him to her with an irresistible entice¬ 
ment. 

“And yet, no,” she said to herself. “He will be 
on his guard. My little maneuver is really too 
puerile. This case, this medal which we find at the 
fateful moment, this departure of Raoul and the 
children, and then my staying alone in the empty 
farm, when my one care on the contrary would be to 
protect my find against the enemy—all this is really 
too far-fetched. An old fox like d’Estreicher will 
shun the trap.” 

And then the other side of the problem presented 
itself: 

“He will come. Perhaps he has already left his 
lair. Manifestly the danger will be clear to him, 
but afterwards, when it is too late. At the actual 
moment he is not free to act or not to act. He 
obeys.” 

So once more Dorothy was guided by her keen in¬ 
sight into the trend of events, in spite of what her 
reason might tell her. The facts grouped them¬ 
selves before her intelligence in a logical sequence 
and with strict method, she saw their accomplish¬ 
ment while they were yet in process of becoming. 
The motives which actuated other people were al¬ 
ways perfectly clear to her. Her intuition revealed 
them; her quick intelligence instantly fitted them to 
the circumstances. 

Besides, as she had said, d’Estreicher was drawn 
by a double temptation. If he succeeded in resisting 
the temptation to try to seize the medal, how could 
he help succumbing to the temptation to seize that 


ON THE IRON WIRE 


H 3 

marvelous prize, right within his reach, Dorothy 
herself? 

She sat upright with a smile. The sound of foot¬ 
steps had fallen on her ears. It must come from the 
wooden bridge which spanned the end of the pool. 
The enemy was coming! 

But almost at the same moment she heard another 
sound on her right and then another on her left. 
D’Estreicher had two confederates. She was 
hemmed in! 

The hands of her watch pointed to five minutes to 

four. 


CHAPTER IX 


FACE TO FACE 

“If they seize me,” she thought. “If it’s d’Est- 
reicher’s intention to kidnap me without more ado, 
there’s nothing to be done. Before I could be res¬ 
cued, they would carry me off to their underground 
lair, and from there I don’t know where!” 

And why should it be otherwise? Master of the 
medal and of Dorothy, the ruffian had only to fly. 

On the instant she saw all the faults of her plan. 
In order to compel d’Estreicher to risk a sortie that 
she might capture him during that sortie, she had 
invented a too subtle ruse, which actual develop¬ 
ments of Fortune’s spite might turn to her undoing. 
A conflict which turns on the number of seconds 
gained or lost is extremely doubtful. 

She went quickly into the house and pushed the 
disc under a heap of discarded things in a small 
lumber-room. The necessary hunt for it would de¬ 
lay for a while the enemy’s flight. But when she 
came back to go out of the house, d’Estreicher, 
grimacing ironically behind his spectacles and under 
his thick beard, stood on the threshold of the front 
door. 

Dorothy never carried a revolver. All her life 
she never cared to trust to anything but her courage 
and intelligence. She regretted it at this horrible 

144 


FACE TO FACE 


145 

moment when she found herself face to face with 
the man who had murdered her father. Her first 
act would have been to blow out his brains. 

Divining her vengeful thought, he seized her arm 
quickly and twisted it, as he had twisted the arm of 
old Juliet Assire. Then bending over her, he 
snapped: 

“Where have you put it? ... Be quick!” 

She did not even dream of resisting, so acute was 
the pain, and took him to the little room, and pointed 
to the heap. He found the disc at once, weighed it 
in his hand, examining it with an air of immense 
satisfaction and said: 

“That’s all right. Victory at last! Twenty 
years of struggle come to an end. And over and 
above what I bargained for, you, Dorothy—the most 
magnificent and desirable of rewards.” 

He ran his hand over her frock to make sure that 
she was not armed, then seized her round the body, 
and with a strength which no one would have be¬ 
lieved him to possess, swung her over his shoulder 
on to his back. 

“You make me feel uneasy, Dorothy,” he 
chuckled. “What? No resistance? What pretty 
behavior, my dear! There must be something in 
the way of a trap under it all. So I’ll be off.” 

Outside she caught sight of the two men, who 
were on guard at the big gate. One of them was 
the confederate she knew, from having seen him at 
Juliet Assire’s cottage. The other, his face flat¬ 
tened against the bars of a small wicket, was watch¬ 
ing the road. 

D’Estreicher called to them: 


146 THE SECRET TOMB 

“Keep your eyes skinned, boys. You musn’t be 
caught in the sheepfold. And when I whistle, bucket 
oft back to the hillocks.” 

He himself made for them with long strides with¬ 
out weakening under his burden. She could smell 
the odor of a damp cellar with which his subter¬ 
ranean lair had impregnated his garments. He held 
her by the neck with a hard hand that bruised it. 

They came to the wooden bridge and were just 
about to cross it. No more than a hundred yards 
from it, perhaps, among the bushes and rocks, was 
one of the entrances to his underground lair. Al¬ 
ready the man was raising his whistle to his lips. 

With a deft movement, Dorothy snatched the 
disc, which was sticking up above the top of the 
pocket into which he had stuffed it, and threw it 
towards the pool. It ran along the ground, rolled 
down the bank, and disappeared under the water. 

“You little devil!” growled the ruffian throwing 
her roughly to the ground. “Stir, and I’ll break 
your head!” 

He went down the bank and floundered about in 
the viscid mud of the river, keeping an eye on 
Dorothy and cursing her. 

She did not dream of flying. She kept looking 
from one to another of the points at the top of the 
wall above which she expected the heads of the 
farm-servants or the detectives to rise. It was cer¬ 
tainly five or six minutes past the hour, yet none of 
them appeared. Nevertheless she did not lose hope. 
She expected d’Estreicher, who had evidently lost his 
head, to make some mistake of which she could take 
advantage. 


FACE TO FACE 


147 

“Yes, yes,” he snarled: “You wish to gain time, 
my dear. And suppose you do? Do you think I’ll 
let go of you? I’ve got you both, you and the 
medal; and your bumpkin of a Raoul isn’t the man 
to loosen my grip. Besides, if he does come, it’ll 
be all the worse for him. My men have their 
orders: a good crack on the head-” 

He was still searching; he stopped short, uttered a 
cry of triumph and stood upright, the disc in his 
hand. 

“Here it is, ducky. Certainly the luck is with 
me; and you’ve lost. On we go, cousin Dorothy!” 

Dorothy cast a last look along the walls. No one. 
Instinctively, at the approach of the man she hated, 
she made as if to thrust him off. It made him laugh 
—so absurd did any resistance seem. Violently he 
beat down her outstretched arms, and again swung 
her on to his shoulder with a movement in which 
there was as much hate as desire. 

“Say good-bye to your sweetheart, Dorothy, for 
the good Raoul is in love with you. Say good-bye 
to him. If ever you see him again, it will be too 
late.” 

He crossed the bridge and strode in among the 
hillocks. 

It was all over. In another thirty seconds, even 
if he were attacked, no longer being in sight of the 
points on the wall at which the men armed with 
guns were to rise up, he would have time to reach the 
mouth of the entrance to his lair. Dorothy had lost 
the battle. Raoul and the detectives would arrive 
too late. 

“You don’t know how nice it is to have you there, 



THE SECRET TOMB 


148 

all quivering, and to carry you away with me, against 
me, without your being able to escape the inevitable,” 
whispered d’Estreicher. “But what’s the matter 
with you? Are you crying? You mustn’t, my 
dear. After all why should you? You would cer¬ 
tainly let yourself be lulled one of these days on the 
bosom of the handsome Raoul. Then there’s no 
reason why I should be more distasteful to you than 
he, is there? But—hang it!” he cried angrily, 
“haven’t you done sobbing yet?” 

He turned her on his shoulder and caught hold of 
her head. 

He was dumfounded. 

Dorothy was laughing. 

“What—what’s this? What are you laughing 
at? Is it p-p-possible that you dare to laugh? 
What on earth do you mean by it?” 

This laughter frightened him as a threat of 
danger? The slut! What was she laughing at? 
A sudden fury rose in him, and setting her down 
clumsily against a tree, he struck her with his 
clenched fist, out of which a ring stuck, on the fore¬ 
head, among her hair, with such force that the blood 
spurted out. 

She was still laughing, as she stammered: 

“You b-b-brute ! What a brute you are !” 

“If you laugh, I’ll bite your mouth, you hussy,” he 
snarled, bending over her red lips. 

He did not dare to carry out the threat, respect¬ 
ing her in spite of himself, and even a little intimi¬ 
dated. She was frightened, however, and laughed 
no more. 


FACE TO FACE 


149 

“What is this? What is it?” he repeated. “You 
should be crying, and you’re laughing. Why?” 

“I was laughing because of the plates,” she said. 

“What plates?” 

“Those which form the case of the medal.” 

“These?” 

“Yes.” 

“What about them?” 

“They’re the plates of Dorothy’s Circus,. I used 
to juggle with them.” 

He looked utterly flabbergasted. 

“What’s this rot you’re talking?” 

“It is rot, isn’t it? Saint-Quentin and I soldered 
them together; I engraved the motto on them with a 
knife; and last night we threw them into the pool.” 

“But you’re mad. I don’t understand. With 
what object did you do it?” 

“Since poor old Juliet Assire babbled some ad¬ 
missions about the river when you tortured her, I 
was pretty sure you’d fall into the trap.” 

“What do you mean? What trap?” 

“I wanted to get you to come out of here.” 

“You knew that I was here then?” 

“Rather! I knew that you were watching us 
fish up the case; and I knew for certain what would 
happen after that. Believing that this case, found 
at the bottom of the pool under your very eyes, con¬ 
tained the medal, and seeing moreover that Raoul 
had gone and I was alone at the Manor, you 
wouldn’t be able to come. But you have come.” 

He stuttered: 

“The g-g-gold medal. ... It isn’t in this case 
then?” 


150 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“No. It’s empty.” 

“And Raoul? . . . Raoul? . . . You’re expect¬ 
ing him?” 

“Yes.” 

“Alone?” 

“With some detectives. He went to meet them.” 

He clenched his fists and growled: 

“You little beast, you denounced me.” 

“I denounced you.” 

Not for a second did d’Estreicher think she might 
be lying. He held the metal disc in his hand; and it 
would have been easy enough to force it open with 
his knife. To what end? The disc was empty. 
He was sure of it. Of a sudden he grasped the 
full force of the comedy she had played on the pool; 
it explained to him the odd uneasiness and disquiet 
he had felt while he was watching that series of 
actions the connection of which seemed to him 
strange. 

However he had come. He had plunged blindly, 
with his head down, into the trap she had audaciously 
laid for him before his very eyes. Of what miracu¬ 
lous power was she mistress? And how was he 
going to slip through the meshes of the net which 
was being drawn tighter and tighter round him? 

“Let’s be getting away,” he said, eager to get out 
of danger. 

But he was suffering from a lassitude of will, and 
instead of picking up his victim, he questioned her. 

“The disc is empty. But you know where the 
medal is?” he questioned. 

“Of course I know,” said Dorothy, who only 


FACE TO FACE 


151 

thought of gaining time and whose furtive eyes were 
scanning the top of the wall. 

The man’s eyes sparkled: 

“Ah, you do, do you? . . . You must be a fool to 
admit it! . . . Since you know, you’re going to tell, 
my dear. If not-” 

He drew his revolver. 

She said mockingly: 

“Just as with Juliet Assire? Twenty’s what you 
count, isn’t it? You may as well save your breath; 
it doesn’t work with me.” 

“I swear, dammit!-” 

“Words!” 

No: the battle was certainly not lost. Dorothy, 
though exhausted, her face smeared with blood, 
clung to every possible incident with grim tenacity. 
She felt strongly that, in his fury, d’Estreicher was 
capable of killing her. But she was quite as clearly 
aware of his confusion of ideas and of her power 
over him. He hadn’t the strength to depart and 
abandon the medal for which he had struggled so 
desperately. If only his hesitation lasted a few 
minutes longer, Raoul was bound to appear on the 
scene. 

At this moment an incident occurred which ap¬ 
peared to excite her keenest interest, for she leant 
forward to follow it more closely. The old Baron 
came out of the Manor, carrying a bag, not dressed, 
as usual, in a blouse, but in a cloth suit, and wearing 
a felt hat. That showed that he had made a choice, 
that is to say, an effort of thought. Then there was 
another such effort. Goliath was not with him. 
He waited for him, stamped his foot, and when the 




152 THE SECRET TOMB 

dog did come, caught him by the collar, looked about 
him, and took his way to the gate. 

The two confederates barred his path; he muttered 
some grumbling complaints and tried to get past 
them. They shoved him back and at last he went 
off among the trees, without loosing Goliath, but 
leaving.his bag behind him. 

His action was easy to understand; and Dorothy 
and d’Estreicher alike grasped the fact that the old 
fellow had wanted to go off on the quest of the 
treasure. In spite of his madness, he had not for¬ 
gotten the enterprise. The appointed date was en¬ 
graved on his memory; and on the day he had fixed, 
he strapped up his bag and started out like a piece 
of mechanism which one has wound up and which 
goes off at the moment fixed. 

D’Estreicher called out to his confederates: 

“Search his bag!” 

Since they found nothing, no medal, no clue, he 
walked up and down in front of Dorothy for a mo¬ 
ment, undecided what course to take and then 
stopped beside her: 

“Answer me. Raoul loves you. You don’t love 
him. Otherwise I should have put a stop to your 
little flirtation a fortnight ago. But all the same 
you feel some obligations towards him in the matter 
of the medal and the treasure; and you’ve joined 
forces. It’s just foolishness, my dear, and I’m going 
to set your mind at rest about the matter, for there’s 
a thing you don’t know and I’m going to tell it 
you. After which I’m sure you’ll speak. Answer 
me then. With regard to this medal, you must be 
wondering how I come to be hunting for it, since, as 


FACE TO FACE 


153 

you very well know, I stole it from your father. 
What do you suppose?” 

“I suppose somebody took it from you.” 

“You’re right. But do you know who it was?” 

“No.” 

“Raoul’s father, George Davernoie.” 

She started and exclaimed: 

“You lie!” 

“I do not!” he declared firmly. “You remember 
your father’s last letter which cousin Octave read to 
us at Roborey? The Prince of Argonne related 
how he heard two men talking under his window and 
saw a hand slip through it towards the table and 
sneak the medal. Well, the man who had accom¬ 
panied the other on the expedition and was waiting 
below, was George Davernoie. And that rogue, 
Dorothy, the very next night robbed his comrade.” 

Dorothy was shaking with indignation and 
abhorrence: 

“It’s a lie! Raoul’s father take to such a trade? 
A thief?” 

“Worse than that. For the enterprise had not 
only robbery for its aim. . . . And if the man who 
poured the poison into the glass and whose tattooed 
arm was seen by the Prince of Argonne, does not 
deny his acts, he doesn’t forget that the poison was 
provided by the other.” 

“You lie! You lie! You alone are the culprit! 
You alone murdered my father!” 

“You don’t really believe that. And look: here’s 
a letter from him to the old Baron, to his father, 
that is. I found it among the Baron’s papers. 
Read it: 


i 5 4 THE SECRET TOMB 

“ ‘I have at last laid my hand on the indispensable 
gold piece. On my next leave I’ll bring it to you.’ 

“And look at the date. A week after the death 
of the Prince of Argonne ! Do you believe me now, 
eh? And don’t you think that we might come to an 
understanding between ourselves, apart from this 
milksop Raoul?’’ 

This revelation had tried Dorothy sorely. How¬ 
ever, she pulled herself together and putting a good 
face on it, she asked: 

“What do you mean?’’ 

“I mean that the gold medal, brought to the 
Baron, intrusted by him to his old flame for a while, 
then hidden I don’t know where, belongs to you. 
Raoul has no right to it. I’ll buy it from you ” 

“At what price ?” 

“Any price you like—half the treasure, if you 
demand it.” 

Dorothy saw on the instant how she could make 
the most of the situation. Here again was a way 
of gaining some minutes, decisive minutes perhaps, a 
painful and costly way, since she risked handing over 
to him the key to the treasure. But dare she hesi¬ 
tate? D’Estreicher was nearly at the end of his 
patience. He was beside himself at the notion of 
the imminent attack with which he was threatened. 
Let him get carried away by an access of panic and 
all would be lost by his taking flight. 

“A partnership between us? Never ! A sharing 
of the treasure which would make me your ally? A 
thousand times, no! I detest you. But an agree¬ 
ment for a few moments? Perhaps.” 


FACE TO FACE 155 

‘‘Your conditions?” he said. “Be quick! Make 
the most of my allowing you to impose conditions!” 

“That won’t take long. You have a double ob¬ 
ject—the medal and me. You must choose between 
them. Which do you want most?” 

“The medal.” 

“If you let me go free, I’ll give it to you.” 

“Swear to me on your honor that you know where 
it is.” 

“I swear it.” 

“How long have you known?” 

“For about five minutes. A little while ago I did 
not know. A little fact has just come under my 
observation which has informed me.” 

He believed her. It was impossible for him to 
disbelieve her. Everything that she said in that 
fashion, looking you straight in the face, was the 
exact truth. 

“Speak.” 

“It’s for you to speak first. Swear that as soon 
as my promise is fulfilled, I shall be free.” 

The ruffian blinked. The idea of keeping an oath 
appeared comic to him; and Dorothy was quite 
aware that his oath had no value of any kind. 

“I swear it,” he said. 

Then he repeated: “Speak. I can’t quite make 
out what you are faking; but it doesn’t strike me as 
being gospel truth. So I don’t put much faith in it; 
and don’t you forget it.” 

The conflict between them was now at its height; 
and what gave that conflict its peculiar character was 
that both of them saw clearly the adversary’s game. 
Dorothy had no doubt that Raoul, after an unfore- 


THE SECRET TOMB 


156 

seen delay, was on his way to the Manor, and 
d’Estreicher, who had no more doubt of it than she, 
knew that all her actions were based on her expecta¬ 
tion of immediate intervention. But there was one 
trifling fact which rendered their chances of victory 
equal. D’Estreicher believed himself to be in per¬ 
fect security because his two confederates, glued to 
the wicket, were watching the road for the coming 
of the car; while the young girl had taken the ad¬ 
mirable precaution of instructing Raoul to abandon 
the car and take the paths which were out of sight 
of the gate. All her hope sprang from this 
precaution. 

She made her explanation quietly, all the while 
bearing in mind her keen desire to drag out the 
interview. 

“I’ve never ceased to believe,” she said “—and 
I’m sure that you are of the same opinion that the 
Baron has never, so to speak, quitted the medal.” 

“I hunted everywhere,” d’Estreicher objected. 

“So did I. But I don’t mean that he kept it on 
him. I meant that he kept it and still keeps it 
within reach.” 

“You do?” 

“Yes. He has always managed in such a way 
that he has only to stretch out his hand to grasp it.” 

“Impossible. We should have seen it.” 

“Not at all. Only just now you failed to see 
anything.” 

“Just now?” 

“Yes. When he was going off, compelled by the 
bidding of his instinct—when he was going off on 
the very day he had fixed before he fell ill-” 



FACE TO FACE 157 

“He was going off without the medal.” 

“With the medal.” 

“They searched his bag.” 

u The bag wasn’t the only thing he was taking 
with him.” 

“What else was there? Hang it all! You were 
more than a hundred yards away from him! You 
saw nothing.” 

“I saw that he was holding something besides his 
bag.” 

“What?” 

“Goliath.” 

D’Estreicher was silent, struck by that simple 
word and all it signified. 

“Goliath,” Dorothy went on, “Goliath who never 
quitted him, Goliath always within reach of his 
hand, and whom he was holding, whom he is holding 
at this moment. Look at him. His five fingers 
are clenched round the dog’s collar. Do you under¬ 
stand? Round its collar!” 

Once more d’Estreicher had no doubt. Dorothy’s 
declaration immediately appeared to him to meet all 
the circumstances of the case. Once more she threw 
light on the affair. Beyond that light: nothing but 
darkness and contradictions. 

He recovered all his coolness. His will to act 
instantly revived; and at the same time he saw 
clearly all the precautions to be taken to minimize 
the risks of the attempt. 

He drew from his pocket a thin piece of rope, with 
which he bound Dorothy, and a handkerchief which 
he tied across her mouth. 


158 THE SECRET TOMB 

“If you’ve made a mistake, darling, all the worse 
for you. You’ll pay for it.” 

And he added in a sarcastic tone: 

“Moreover, if you haven’t made a mistake, all the 
worse for you just the same. I’m not the man to 
lose my prey.” 

He hailed his condeferates: 

“Hi, boys! Is there any one on the road?” 

“Not a soul!” 

“Keep your eyes open! We’ll be off in three 
minutes. When I whistle, bucket off to the entrance 
to the caves. I’ll bring the young woman along.” 

The threat, terrible as it was, did not effect 
Dorothy. For her the whole drama was unfolding 
itself down below, between d’Estreicher and the 
Baron. D’Estreicher ran down from the hillocks, 
crossed the bridge, and ran towards the old man who 
was sitting on a bench on the terrace, with Goliath’s 
head on his knee. 

Dorothy felt her heart beating wildly. Not that 
she doubted that he would find the medal. It would 
be found in the dog’s collar—of that she was sure. 
But it must be that this supreme effort to snatch a 
last delay could not fail. 

“If the barrel of a gun doesn’t appear above the 
top of the wall before a minute is up, d’Estreicher is 
my master.” 

And since she would rather kill herself than sub¬ 
mit to that degradation, during that minute her life 
was at stake. 

The respite accorded by circumstances was longer 
than that. D’Estreicher, having flung himself on 
the dog, met with an unexpected resistance from the 


FACE TO FACE 


i59 

Baron. The old man thrust him off furiously, while 
the dog barked and dragged himself free from the 
ruffian’s grip. The struggle was prolonged. 
Dorothy followed its phases with alternating fear 
and hope, backing up Raoul’s grandfather with all 
the force of her will, cursing the energy and stub¬ 
bornness of the ruffian. In the end the old Baron 
grew tired and appeared all at once to lose interest 
in what might happen. One might have thought 
that Goliath must have suddenly fallen a victim to 
the same sense of lassitude. He sat down at his 
master’s feet and let himself be handled with a kind 
of indifference. With trembling fingers d’Estreicher 
caught hold of the collar, and ran his fingers along 
the nail-studded leather under the dog’s thick coat. 
His fingers found the buckle. 

But he got no further. The dramatic surprise 
came at last. A man’s bust rose above the wall, and 
a voice cried: 

“Hands up!” 

At last Dorothy smiled with an indescribable sen¬ 
sation of joy and deliverance. Her plan, delayed by 
some obstacle, was a success. Near Saint-Quentin 
who had been the first to appear, another figure rose 
above the wall, leveled a gun, and cried: 

“Hands up!” 

Instantly d’Estreicher abandoned his search and 
looked about him with an air of panic. Two other 
shouts rang out: 

“Hands up! Hands up!” 

From the points chosen by the young girl two 
more guns were leveled at him, and the men who 
aimed, aimed straight at d’Estreicher only. Never- 


160 THE SECRET TOMB 

theless he hesitated. A bullet sang over his head. 
His hands went up. His confederates were already 
half-way to the hillocks in their flight. No one paid 
any attention to them. They ran across the bridge 
and disappeared in the direction of an isolated hil¬ 
lock which was called the Labyrinth. 

The big gate flew open. Raoul rushed through it, 
followed by two men whom Dorothy did not know, 
but who must be the detectives dispatched on his 
information. 

D’Estreicher did not budge; he kept his hands up; 
and doubtless he would not have made any resist¬ 
ance, if a false move of the police had not given him 
the chance. As they reached him they closed round 
him, covering him for two or three seconds from the 
fire of the servants on the wall. He took advantage 
of their error to whip out his revolver and shoot. 
Four times it cracked. Three bullets went wide. 
The fourth buried itself in Raoul’s leg; and he fell 
to the ground with a groan. 

It was a futile outburst of rage and savagery. On 
the instant the detectives grappled with d’Estreicher, 
disarmed him, and reduced him to impotence. 

They handcuffed him; and as they did so his eyes 
sought Dorothy, who was almost out of sight, for 
she had slipped behind a clump of bushes; and as 
they sought her they filled with an expression of 
appalling hate. 

It was Saint-Quentin, followed by the captain, 
who found Dorothy; and at the sight of her blood- 
smeared face, they were nearly beside themselves. 

“Silence,” she commanded, to cut short their ques- 


FACE TO FACE 


161 


tions. “Yes, I’m wounded. But it’s a mere noth¬ 
ing. Run to the Baron, captain; catch hold of Go¬ 
liath, pat him, and take off his collar. In the collar, 
you will find behind the metal plate, on which his 
name is engraved, a pocket, forming a lining to it 
and containing the metal we’re looking for. Bring 
it to me.” 

The boy hurried off. 

“Saint-Quentin,” Dorothy continued. “Have the 
detectives seen me?” 

“No.” 

“You must give every one to understand that I 
left the Manor some time ago and that you’re to 
meet me at the market-town, Roche-sur-Yon. I 
don’t want to be mixed up with the inquiry. They’ll 
examine me; and it will be a sheer waste of time.” 

“But Monsieur Davernoie?” 

“As soon as you get the chance, tell him. Tell 
him that I’ve gone for reasons which I will explain 
later, and that I beg him to keep silent about every¬ 
thing that concerns us. Besides, he is wounded, and 
his mind is confused, and nobody will think about 
me. They’re going to hunt through the hillocks, I 
expect, to get hold of d’Estreicher’s confederates. 
They musn’t see me. Cover me with branches.” 

“That’s all right,” she said when he had done so. 
“As soon as it is getting dark, come, all four of you, 
and carry me down to the caravan; and we’ll start 
as soon as it’s daylight. Perhaps I shall be out of 
sorts for a few days. Rather too much overwork 
and excitement—nothing for you to worry about* 
Do you understand, my boy?” 

“Yes, Dorothy.” 


162 


THE SECRET TOMB 

As she had foreseen, the two detectives, having 
shut up d’Estreicher at the Manor, passed at no 
great distance from her, guided by one of the farm- 
servants. She presently heard them calling out and 
guessed that they had discovered the entrance to the 
caves of the Labyrinth, down which d’Estreicher’s 
confederates had fled. 

“Pursuit is useless,” murmured Dorothy. “The 
quarry has too long a start.” 

She felt exhausted. But for nothing in the world 
would she have yielded to her lassitude before the 
return of the captain. She asked Saint-Quentin how 
the attack had come to be so long delayed. 

“An accident, wasn’t it?” 

“Yes,” said he. “The detectives made a mistake 
about the inn; and the farm-servants were late get¬ 
ting back from the fete. It was necessary to collect 
.the whole lot; and the car broke down.” 

Montfaucon came running up. Dorothy went on: 

“Perhaps, Saint-Quentin, there’ll be the name of a 
town, or rather of a chateau, on the medal. In that 
case, find out all you can about the route and take 
the caravan there. Did you find it, captain?” 

“Yes, mummy.” 

“Give it to me, pet.” 

What emotion Dorothy felt when she touched the 
gold medal so keenly coveted by them all, which one 
might reckon the most precious of talismans, as the 
guarantee even of success! 

It was a medal twice the size of a five-franc piece, 
and above all much thicker, less smoothly cut than 
a modern medal, less delicately modeled, and of 
duller gold that did not shine. 


FACE TO FACE 


On the face was the motto: 

In robore fortuna, 
On the reverse these lines: 



July 12 } IQ2I . 

At noon. Before the clock of the Chateau of 

Roche-Periac. 


“The twelfth of July,” muttered Dorothy. “I 
have time to faint.” 

She fainted. 


CHAPTER X 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 

It was not till nearly three days afterwards that 
Dorothy got the better of the physical torpor, 
aggravated by fever, which had overwhelmed her. 
The four boys gave a performance on the outskirts 
of Nantes. Montfaucon took the place of the di¬ 
rectress in the leading role. It was a less taking 
spectacle; but in it the captain displayed such an 
animated comicality that the takings were good. 

Saint-Quentin insisted that Dorothy should take 
another two days’ rest. What need was there to 
hurry? The village of Roche-Periac was at the 
most sixty-five miles from Nantes so that there was 
no need for them to set out till six days before the 
time appointed. 

She allowed herself to be ordered about by him, 
for she was still suffering from a profound lassitude 
as a result of so many ups and downs and such 
violent emotions. She thought a great deal about 
Raoul Davernoie, but in a spirit of angry revolt 
against the feeling of tenderness towards the young 
man with which those weeks of intimacy had in¬ 
spired her. However little he might be connected 
with the drama in which the Prince of Argonne had 
met his death, he was none the less the son of the 
man who had assisted d’Estreicher in the perpetra- 

164 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 165 

tion of the crime. How could she forget that? 
How could she forgive it? 

The quiet pleasantness of the journey soothed the 
young girl. Her ardent and happy nature got the 
better of painful memories and past fatigues. The 
nearer she drew to her goal, the more fully her 
strength of mind and body came back to her, her joy 
in life, her childlike gayety, and her resolve to bring 
the enterprise to a successful end. 

“Saint-Quentin,” she said, “we are advancing to 
the capture of the Golden Fleece. Are you bearing 
in mind the solemn importance of the days that are 
passing? Four days yet . . . three days . . . two 
days; and the Golden Fleece is ours. Baron de 
Saint-Quentin, in a fortnight you will be dressed like 
a dandy.” 

“And you like a princess,” replied Saint-Quentin, 
to whom this prospect of fortune, promising a less 
close intimacy with his great friend, did not seem 
to give any great pleasure. 

She was strongly of the opinion that other trials 
awaited her, that there would still be obstacles to 
surmount and perhaps enemies to fight. But for the 
time being there was a respite and a truce. The 
first part of the drama was finished. Other ad¬ 
ventures were about to begin. Curious and of a 
daring spirit, she smiled at the mysterious future 
which opened before her. 

On the fourth day they crossed the Vilaine, the 
right bank of which they were henceforth to follow, 
along the top of the slopes which run down to the 
river. It was a somewhat barren country, sparsely 


166 


THE SECRET TOMB 


inhabited, over which they moved slowly under a 
scorching sun which overwhelmed One-eyed Magpie. 

At last, next day, the nth of July, they saw 
on a sign-post: 

Roche-Periach 12^2 Miles 

“We shall sleep there to-night,” declared Dorothy. 

It was a painful stage of the journey. . . . The 
heat was suffocating. On the way they picked up a 
tramp who lay groaning on the dusty grass. A 
woman and a club-footed child were walking a hun¬ 
dred yards ahead of them without One-eyed Magpie 
being able to catch them up. 

Dorothy and the four boys took it in turn to sit 
with the tramp in the caravan. He was a wretched 
old man, worn out by poverty, whose rags were only 
held together by pieces of string. In the middle of 
his bushy hair and unkempt beard his eyes, however, 
still had a certain glow, and when Dorothy ques¬ 
tioned him about the life he led, he confounded her 
by saying: 

“One musn’t complain. My father, who was a 
traveling knife-grinder always said to me: ‘Hya¬ 
cinth—that’s my name—Hyacinth, one isn’t miser¬ 
able while one’s brave: Fortune is in the firm 

heart.’ ” 

Dorothy concealed her amazement and said: 

“That’s not a weighty legacy. Did he only leave 
you this secret?” 

“Yes,” said the tramp quite simply. “That and a 
piece of advice: to go on the 12th of July every year, 
and wait in front of the church of Roche-Periac for 
somebody who will give me hundreds and thousands. 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 167 

I go there every year. I’ve never received anything 
but pennies. All the same, it keeps one going, that 
idea does. I shall be there to-morrow, as I was last 
year . . . and as I shall be next.” 

The old man fell back upon his own thoughts. 
Dorothy said no more. But an hour later she of¬ 
fered the shelter of the box to the woman and the 
club-footed child, whom they had at last overtaken. 
And questioning this woman, she learnt that she was 
a factory hand from Paris who was going to the 
church of Roche-Periac that her child’s foot might 
be healed. 

“In my family,” said the woman, “in my father’s 
time and my grandfather’s too, one always did the 
same thing when a child was ill, one took it on the 
12th of July into the chapel of Saint Fortunat at 
Roche-Periac. It’s a certain cure.” 

So, by these two other channels, the legend had 
passed to this woman of the people and this tramp, 
but a deformed legend, of which there only remained 
a few shreds of the truth: the church took the place 
of the chateau, Saint Fortunat of the fortune. Only 
the day of the month mattered; there was no ques¬ 
tion of the year. There was no mention at all of 
the medal. And each was making a pilgrimage to¬ 
wards the place from which so many families had 
looked for miraculous aid. 

That evening the caravan reached the village, and 
at once Dorothy obtained information about the 
Chateau de la Roche-Periac. The only chateau of 
that name that was known was some ruins six miles 
further on situated on the shore of the ocean on a 
small peninsula. 


168 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“We’ll sleep here,” said Dorothy, “and we’ll start 
early in the morning.” 

They did not start early in the morning. The 
caravan was drawn into a barn for the night; and 
soon after midnight Saint-Quentin was awakened by 
the pungent fumes of smoke and a crackling. He 
jumped up. The barn was on fire. He shouted 
and called for help. Some peasants, passing along 
the high road by a happy chance, ran to his assistance. 

It was quite time. They had barely dragged the 
caravan out of the barn when the roof fell in. 
Dorothy and her comrades were uninjured. But 
One-eyed Magpie half roasted, refused firmly to let 
himself be harnessed; the shafts chafed her burns. 
It was not till seven o’clock that the caravan tottered 
off, drawn by a wretched horse they had hired, and 
followed by One-eyed Magpie. As they crossed the 
square in front of the church, they saw the woman 
and her child kneeling at the end of the porch, and 
the tramp on his quest. For them the adventure 
would go no further. 

There were no further incidents. Except Saint- 
Quentin on the box, they went to sleep in the caravan, 
leaning against one another. At half-past nine they 
stopped. They had come to a cottage dignified with 
the name of an inn, on the door of which they read 
“Widow Amoureux. Lodging for man and beast.” 
A few hundred yards away, at the bottom of a slope 
which ended in a low cliff, the little peninsula of 
Periac stretched out into the ocean five promontories 
which looked like the five fingers of a hand. On 
their left was the mouth of the Vilaine. 

For the children it was the end of the expedition. 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 169 

They made a meal in a dimly lighted room, furnished 
with a zinc counter, in which coffee was served. 
Then while Castor and Pollux fed One-eyed Magpie, 
Dorothy questioned the widow Amoureux, a big, 
cheerful, talkative country-woman about the ruins of 
Roche-Periac. 

“Ah, you’re going there too, are you, my dear?” 
the widow exclaimed. 

“Pm not the first then?” said Dorothy. 

“Goodness, no. There’s already an old gentle¬ 
man and his wife. I’ve seen the old gentleman be¬ 
fore at this time of year. Once he slept here. He’s 
one of those who seek.” 

“Who seek what?” 

“Who can tell? A treasure, according to what 
they say. The people about here don’t believe in 
it. But people come from a long way off who hunt 
in the woods and turn over the stones.” 

“It’s allowed then, is it?” 

“Why not? The island of Periac—I call it an 
island because at high tide the road to it is covered— 
belongs to the monks of the monastery of Sarzeau, a 
couple of leagues further on. It seems, indeed, that 
they’re ready to sell the ruins and all the land. But 
who’d buy them? There’s none of it cultivated; 
it’s all wild.” 

“Is there any other road to it but this?” 

“Yes, a stony road which starts at the cliff and 
runs into the road to Vannes. But I tell you, my 
dear, it’s a lost land—deserted. I don’t see ten 
travelers a year—some shepherds, that’s all.” 

At last at ten o’clock, the caravan was properly 
installed, and in spite of the entreaties of Saint- 


THE SECRET TOMB 


170 

Quentin who would have liked to go with her and to 
whom she intrusted the children, Dorothy, dressed 
in her prettiest frock and adorned with her most 
striking fichu, started on her campaign. 

The great day had begun—the day of triumph or 
disappointment, of darkness or light. Whichever it 
might be, for a girl like Dorothy with her mind al¬ 
ways alert and of an ever quivering sensitiveness, the 
moment was delightful. Her imagination created a 
fantastic palace, bright with a thousand shining 
windows, people with good and bad genies, with 
Prince Charmings and beneficent fairies. 

A light breeze blew from the sea and tempered 
the rays of the sun with its freshness. The further 
she advanced the more distinctly she saw the jagged 
contours of the five promontories and of the penin¬ 
sula in which they were rooted in a mass of bushes 
and green rocks. The meager outline of a half de¬ 
molished tower rose above the tops of the trees; and 
here and there among them one caught sight of the 
gray stones of a ruin. 

But the slope became steeper. The Vannes’ road 
joined hers where it ran down a break in the cliff, * 
and Dorothy saw that the sea, very high up at the 
moment, almost bathed the foot of this cliff, cover¬ 
ing with calm, shallow water the causeway to the 
peninsula. 

On the top were standing, upright, the old gentle¬ 
man and the lady of whom the widow Amoureux had 
told her. Dorothy was amazed to recognize 
Raoul’s grandfather and his old flame Juliet Assire. 
The old Baron! Juliet Assire! How had they 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 


171 

been able to get away from the Manor, to escape 
from Raoul, to make the journey, and reach the 
threshold of the ruins? 

She came right up to them without their even 
seeming to notice her presence. Their eyes were 
vague; and they were gazing in dull surprise at this 
sheet of w r ater which hindered their progress. 

Dorothy was touched. Two centuries of chimer¬ 
ical hopes had bequeathed to the old Baron instruc¬ 
tions so precise that they survived the extinction of 
his power to think. He had come here from a dis¬ 
tance, in spite of terrible fatigues and superhuman 
efforts to attain the goal, groping his way, in the 
dark, and accompanied by another creature, like him¬ 
self, demented. And behold both of them stopped 
dead before a little water as before an obstacle there 
was no surmounting. 

She said to him gently: 

“Will you follow me? It’s a mere nothing to go 
through.” 

He raised his head and looked at her and did not 
reply. The woman also was silent. Neither he nor 
she could understand. They were automata rather 
than living beings, urged on by an impulse which was 
outside them. They had come without knowing 
what they were doing; they had stopped and they 
would go back without knowing what they were 
doing. 

There was no time to lose. Dorothy did not in¬ 
sist. She pulled up her frock and pinned it between 
her legs. She took off her shoes and stockings and 
stepped into the water which was so shallow that her 
knees were not wet. 


THE SECRET TOMB 


172 

When she reached the further shore the old 
people had not budged. With a dumfounded air 
they still gazed at the unforeseen obstacle. In spite 
of herself, with a compassionate smile, she stretched 
out her arms towards them. The old Baron again 
threw back his head. Juliet Assire was as still as a 
statue. 

“Good-bye,” said Dorothy, almost happy at their 
inaction and at being alone to prosecute the enter¬ 
prise. 

The approach to the peninsula of Periac is made 
very narrow by two marshes, according to the widow 
Amoureux reputed to be very dangerous, between 
which a narrow band of solid ground affords the 
only path. This path mounted a wooded ravine, 
which some faded writing on an old board described 
as “Bad Going” and came out to a plateau covered 
with gorse and heather. At the end of twenty min¬ 
utes Dorothy crossed the debris of part of the old 
wall which ran round the chateau. 

She slackened her pace. At every step it seemed 
to her that she was penetrating into a more and 
more mysterious region in which time had accumu¬ 
lated more silence and more solitude. The trees 
hugged one another more closely. The shade of the 
brushwood was so thick that no flowers grew be¬ 
neath it. Who then had lived here formerly and 
planted these trees, some of which were of rare 
species and foreign origin? 

The road split into three paths, goat-tracks, along 
which one had to walk in a stooping posture under 
the low branches. She chose at random the middle 
track of the three and passed through a series of 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 173 

small enclosures marked out by small walls of 
crumbling stone. Under heavy draperies of ivy she 
saw rows of build&gs. She did not doubt that her 
goal was close at hand, and her emotion was so great 
that she had to sit down like a pilgrim who is about 
to arrive in sight of the sacred spot towards which 
he has been advancing ever since his earliest days. 

And of her inmost self she asked this question: 

“Suppose I have made a mistake? Suppose all 
this means nothing at all? Yes: in the little leather 
bag I have in my pocket, there is a medal, and on 
it the name of a chateau, and a given day in a given 
year. And here I am at the chateau at the appointed 
time; but all the same what is there to prove that 
my reasoning is sound, or that anything is going to 
happen ? A hundred and fifty or two hundred years 
is a very long time, and any number of things may 
have happened to sweep away the combinations of 
which I believe I have caught a glimpse.” 

She rose. Step by step she advanced slowly. A 
pavement of different-colored bricks, arranged in a 
design, covered the ground. The arch of an isolated 
gateway, quite bare, opened high above. She passed 
through it, and at once, at the end of a large court¬ 
yard, she saw—and it was all she did see—the face 
of a clock. 

A glance at her watch showed her that it was half¬ 
past eleven. There was no one else in the ruins. 

And truly it seemed as if there never could be any 
one else in this last corner of the world, whither 
chance could only bring ignorant wayfarers or shep¬ 
herds in quest of pasturage for their flocks. Indeed, 
there were only fragments of ruins, rather than ac» 


THE SECRET TOMB 


174 

tual ruins, covered with ivy and briers—here a porch, 
there a vault, further on a chimneypiece, further 
still the skeleton of a summer-house—alone, vener¬ 
able witnesses to a time at which there had been a 
house, with a court-yard in front, wings on both 
sides, surrounded by a park. Further off there 
stood, in groups or in fragments of avenues, fine old 
trees, chiefly oaks, wide-spreading, venerable, and 
magestic. 

At one side of the court-yard, the shape of which 
she could make out by the position of the buildings 
which had crumbled to ruins, part of the front, still 
intact, and backed by a small hill of ruins, held, at 
the top of a very low first story, this clock which had 
escaped by a miracle man’s ravages. Across its face 
stretched its two big hands, the color of rust. Most 
of the hours, engraved contrary to the usual custom 
in Roman figures, were effaced. Moss and wall- 
pellitory were growing between the gaping stones of 
the face. Right at the bottom of it, under cover in 
a small niche, a bell awaited the stroke of the 
hammer. 

A dead clock, whose heart had ceased to beat. 
Dorothy had the impression that time had stopped 
there for centuries, suspended from these motionless 
hands, from that hammer which no longer struck, 
from that silent bell in its sheltering niche. Then 
she espied underneath it, on a marble tablet, some 
scarcely legible letters, and mounting a pile of stones, 
she could decipher the words: In robore fortuna! 

In robore fortuna! The beautiful and noble 
motto that one found everywhere, at Roborey, at the 
Manor, at the Chateau de la Roche-Periac, and on 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 175 

the medal! Was Dorothy right then? Were the 
instructions given by the medal still valid? And 
was it truly a meeting-place to which one was sum¬ 
moned, across time and space, in front of this dead 
clock? 

She gained control of herself and said, laughing: 

“A meeting-place to which I alone shall come.” 

So keen was this conviction of hers that she could 
hardly believe that those who, like herself, had been 
summoned would come. The formidable series of 
chances, thanks to which, little by little, she had 
come to the very heart of this enigmatic adventure, 
could not logically be repeated in the case of some 
other privileged being. The chain of tradition 
must have been broken in the other families, or have 
ended in fragments of the truth, as the instances of 
the tramp and the factory hand proved. 

“No one will come,” she repeated. “It is five and 
twenty to twelve. Consequently-” 

She did not finish the sentence. A sound came 
from the land side, a sound near at hand, distinct 
from those produced by the movements of the sea 
or the wind. She listened. It came with an even 
beat which grew more and more distinct. 

“Some peasant . . . some wood-cutter,” she 
thought. 

No. It was something else. She made it out 
more clearly the nearer it came: it was the slow and 
measured step of a horse whose hoofs were striking 
the harder soil of the path. Dorothy followed its 
progress through one after the other of the inclos¬ 
ures of the old estate, then along the brick pavement. 



THE SECRET TOMB 


176 

A clicking of the tongue of a rider, urging on his 
mount, at intervals came to her ears. 

Her eyes fixed on the yawning arch Dorothy 
waited almost shivering with curiosity. 

And suddenly a horseman appeared. An odd¬ 
looking horseman, who looked so large on his little 
horse, that one was rather inclined to believe that he 
was advancing by means of those long legs which 
hung down so far, and pulling the horse along like a 
child's toy. His check suit, his knickerbockers, his 
thick woolen stockings, his clean-shaven face, the 
pipe between his teeth, his phlegmatic air, all pro¬ 
claimed his English nationality. 

On seeing Dorothy he said to himself and without 
the slightest air of astonishment: 

“Oh.” 

And he would have continued his journey if he 
had not caught sight of the clock. He pulled in his 
horse. 

To dismount he had only to stand on tip-toe and 
his horse slipped from under him. He knotted the 
bridle round a root, looked at his watch, and took up 
his position not far from the clock. 

“Here is a gentleman who doesn’t waste words,” 
thought Dorothy. “An Englishman for certain.” 

She presently discovered that he kept looking at 
her, but as one looks at a woman one finds pretty and 
not at all as one looks at a person with whom cir* 
cumstances demand that one should converse. His 
pipe having gone out, he lit it again; and so they re¬ 
mained three or four minutes, close to one another, 
serious, without stirring. The breeze blew the 
smoke from his pipe towards her. 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 177 

“It’s too silly,” said Dorothy to herself. “For 
after all it’s very likely that this taciturn gentleman 
and I have an appointment. Upon my word, I’m 
going to introduce myself. Under which name?” 

This question threw her into a state of consider¬ 
able embarrassment. Ought she to introduce her¬ 
self to him as Princess of Argonne or as Dorothy the 
rope-dancer? The solemnity of the occasion called 
for a ceremonious presentation and the revelation of 
her rank. But on the other hand her variegated 
costume with its short skirt called for less pomp. 
Decidedly “Rope-dancer” sufficed. 

These considerations, to the humor of which she 
was quite alive, had brought a smile to her face. 
The young man observed it. He smiled too. Both 
of them opened their mouths, and they were about to 
speak at the same time when an incident stopped 
them on the verge of utterance. A man came out 
of the path into the court-yard, a pedestrian with a 
clean shaven face, very pale, one arm in a sling under 
a jacket much too large for him, and a Russian sol¬ 
dier’s cap. 

The sight of the clock brought him also to a dead 
stop. Perceiving Dorothy and her companion, he 
smiled an expansive smile that opened his mouth 
from ear to ear, and took off his cap, uncovering a 
completely shaven head. 

During this incident the sound of a motor had 
been throbbing away, at first at some distance. The 
explosions grew louder, and there burst, once more 
through the arch, into the court-yard a motor-cycle 
which went bumping over the uneven ground and 


178 THE SECRET TOMB 

stopped short. The motor-cyclist had caught sight 
of the clock. 

Quite young, of a well set-up, well-proportioned 
figure, tall, slim, and of a cheerful countenance, he 
was certainly, like the first-comer, of the Anglo-Saxon 
race. Having propped up his motor-cycle, he 
walked towards Dorothy, watch in hand as if he were 
on the point of saying: 

“You will note that I am not late.” 

But he was interrupted by two more arrivals who 
came almost simultaneously. A second horseman 
came trotting briskly through the arch on a big, lean 
horse, and at the sight of the group gathered in front 
of the clock, drew rein sharply, saying in Italian: 

“Gently—gently.” 

He had a fine profile ^nd an amiable face, and 
when he had tied up his mount, he came forward hat 
in hand, as one about to pay his respects to a lady. 

But, mounted on a donkey, appeared a fifth indi¬ 
vidual, from a different direction from any of the 
others. On the threshold of the court he pulled up 
in amazement, staring stupidly with wide-open eyes 
behind his spectacles. 

“Is it p-p-possible?” he stammered. “Is it pos¬ 
sible? They’ve come. The whole thing isn’t a 
fairy-tale!” 

He was quite sixty. Dressed in a frock-coat, his 
head covered with a black straw hat, he wore 
whiskers and carried under his arm a leather satchel. 
He did not cease to reiterate in a flustered voice: 

“They have come! . . . They have come to the 
rendezvous! . . . It’s unbelievable!” 

Up to now Dorothy had been silent in the face of 


TOWARDS THE GOLDEN FLEECE 179 

the exclamations and arrivals of her companions 
The need of explanations, of speech even, seemed to 
diminish in her the more they flocked round her. 
She became serious and grave. Her thoughtful eyes 
expressed an intense emotion. Each apparition 
seemed to her as tremendous an event as a miracle. 
Like the gentleman in the frock-coat with the satchel, 
she murmured: 

“Is it possible? They have come to the ren¬ 
dezvous 1” 

She looked at her watch. 

Noon. 

“Listen,” she said, stretching out her hand. “Lis¬ 
ten. The Angelus is ringing somewhere ... at 
the village church ...” 

They uncovered their heads, and while they lis¬ 
tened to the ringing of the bell, which came to them 
in irregular bursts, one would have said that they 
were waiting for the clock to start going and con¬ 
nect with the minute that was passing the thread of 
the minutes of long ago. 

Dorothy fell on her knees. Her emotion was so 
deep that she was weeping. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE WILL OF THE MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 

Tears of joy, tears which relieved her strained 
nerves and bathed her in an immense peacefulness. 
The five men were greatly disturbed, knowing neither 
what to do nor what to say. 

“Mademoiselle? . . . What’s the matter, made¬ 
moiselle?” 

They seemed so staggered by her sobs and by their 
own presence round her, that Dorothy passed sud¬ 
denly from tears to laughter, and yielding to her 
natural impulse, she began forthwith to dance, with¬ 
out troubling to know whether she would appear to 
them to be a princess or a rope-dancer. And the 
more this unexpected display increased the embar¬ 
rassment of her companions the gayer she grew. 
Fandango, jig, reel, she gave a snatch of each, with 
a simulated accompaniment of castanets, and a 
genuine accompaniment of English songs and 
Auvergnat ritornelles, and above all of bursts of 
laughter which awakened the echoes of Roche- 
Periac.” 

“But laugh too, all five of you!” she cried. “You 
look like five mummies. It’s» I who order you 
to laugh, I, Dorothy, rope-dancer and Princess of 
Argonne. Come, Mr. Lawyer,” she added, address¬ 
ing the gentleman in the frock-coat. “Look more 

180 


WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 181 

cheerful. I assure you that there’s plenty to be 
cheerful about.” 

She darted to the good man, shook him by the 
hand, and said, as if to assure him of his status: 
“You are the lawyer, aren’t you? The notary 
charged with the execution of the provisions of a 
will. That’s much clearer than you think. . . . 
We’ll explain it to you . . . You are the notary?” 

“That is the fact,” stammered the gentleman. “I 
am Maitre Delarue, notary at Nantes.” 

“At Nantes? Excellent; we know where we are. 
And it’s a question of a gold medal, isn’t it? . . . A 
gold medal which each has received as a summons to 
the rendezvous?” 

“Yes, yes,” he said, more and more flustered. “A 
gold medal—a rendezvous.” 

“The 12th of July, 1921.” 

“Yes, yes—1921.” 

“At noon ?” 

“At noon.” 

He made as if to look at his watch. She stopped 
him: 

“You needn’t take the trouble, Maitre Delarue; 
we’ve heard the Angelus. You are punctual at the 
rendezvous. ... We are too. . . . Everything is 
in order. . . . Each has his gold medal. . . . 
They’re going to show it to you.” 

She drew Maitre Delarue towards the clock, and 
said with even greater animation: 

“This is Maitre Delarue, the notary. You under¬ 
stand? If you don’t, I can speak English—and 
Italian—and Javanese.” 


182 THE SECRET TOMB 

All four of them protested that they understood 
French. 

“Excellent. We shall understand one another 
better. Then this is Maitre Delarue; he is the 
notary, the man who has been instructed to preside 
at our meeting. In France notaries represent the 
dead. So that since it is a dead man who brings us 
together, you see how important Maitre Delarue’s 
position is in the matter. You don’t grasp it ? How 
funny that is! To me it is all so clear—and so 
amusing. So strange! It’s the prettiest adventure 
I ever heard of—and the most thrilling. Think now! 
We all belong to the same family. . . . We’re by 
way of being cousins. Then we ought to be joyful 
like relations who have come together. And all the 
more because—yes: I’m right—all four of you are 
decorated. . . . The French Croix de Guerre. 
Then all four of you have fought? . . . Fought in 
France? . . . You have defended my dear coun- 
. try?” 

She shook hands with all of them, with an air of 
affection, and since the American and the Italian dis¬ 
played an equal warmth, of a sudden, with a spon¬ 
taneous movement, she rose on tip-toe and kissed 
them on both cheeks. 

“Welcome cousin from America . . . welcome 
cousin from Italy . . . welcome to my country. 
And to you two also, greetings. It’s settled that 
we’re comrades—friends—isn’t it?” 

The atmosphere was charged with joy and that 
good humor which comes from being young and full 
of life. They felt themselves to be really of the 
same family, scattered members brought together. 


WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 183 

They no longer felt the constraint of a first meeting. 
They had known one another for years and years— 
for ages! cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. So 
the four men surrounded her, at once attracted by 
her charm and lightheartedness, and surprised by the 
light she brought into the obscure story which so 
suddenly united them to one another. All barriers 
were swept away. There was none of that slow in¬ 
filtration of feeling which little by little fills you with 
trust and sympathy, but the sudden inrush of the 
most unreserved comradeship. Each wished to 
please and each felt that he did please. 

Dorothy separated them and set them in a row as 
if about to review them. 

“I’ll take you in turn, my friends. Excuse me, 
Monsieur Delarue, I’ll do the questioning and verify 
their credentials. Number one, the gentleman from 
America, who are you? Your name?” 

The American answered: 

“Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia.” 

“Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia. You re¬ 
ceived from your father a gold medal?” 

“From my mother, mademoiselle. My father 
died many years ago.” 

“And from whom did your mother receive it?” 

“From her father.” 

“And he from his and so on in succession, isn’t 
that it?” 

Archibald Webster confirmed her statement in ex¬ 
cellent French, as if it was his duty to answer her 
questions: 

“And so on in succession, as you say, mademoi¬ 
selle. A family tradition, which goes back to we 


184 THE SECRET TOMB 

don’t know when, ascribes a French origin to her 
family, and directs that a certain medal should be 
transmitted to the eldest son, without more than two 
persons ever knowing of its existence.” 

“And what do you understand this tradition to 
mean?” 

“I don’t know what it means. My mother told 
me that it gave us a right to a share of a treasure. 
But she laughed as she told me and sent me to 
France rather out of curiosity.” 

“Show me your medal, Archibald Webster.” 

The American took the gold medal from his 
waistcoat pocket. It was exactly like the one 
Dorothy possessed—the inscription, the size, the dull 
color were the same. Dorothy showed it to Maitre 
Delarue, then gave it back to the American, and 
went on with her questioning: 

“Number two—English, aren’t you?” 

“George Errington, of London.” 

“Tell us what you know, George Errington, of 
London.” 

The Englishman shook his pipe, emptied it, and 
answered in equally good French. 

“I know no more. An orphan from birth, I re¬ 
ceived the medal three days ago from the hands of 
my guardian, my father’s brother. He told me that, 
according to my father, it was a matter of collecting 
a bequest, and according to himself, there was noth¬ 
ing in it, but I ought to obey the summons.” 

“You were right to obey it, George Errington. 
Show me your medal. Right: you’re in order. . . , 
Number three—a Russian, doubtless?” 

The man in the soldier’s cap understood; but he 


WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 185 

did not speak French. He smiled his large smile 
and gave her a scrap of paper of doubtful cleanli¬ 
ness, on which was written: “Kourobelef, French 
war, Salonica. War with Wrangel.” 

“The medal?” said Dorothy. “Right. You’re 
one of us. And the medal of number four—the 
gentleman from Italy?” 

“Marco Dario, of Geneva,” answered the Italian, 
showing his medal. “I found it on my father’s body, 
in Champagne, one day after we had been fighting 
side by side. He had never spoken to me about it.” 

“Nevertheless you have come here.” 

“I did not intend to. And then, in spite of myself, 
as I had returned to Champagne—to my father’s 
tomb, I took the train to Vannes.” * 

“Yes,” she said: “like the others you have obeyed 
the command of our common ancestor. What 
ancestor? And why this command? That is what 
Monsieur Delarue is going to reveal to us. Come 
Monsieur Delarue: all is in order. All of us have 
the token. It is now in order for us to call on you 
for the explanation.” 

“What explanation?” asked the lawyer, still 
dazed by so many surprises. “I don’t quite 
know . . .” 

“How do you mean you don’t know? . . . Why 
this leather satchel. . . . And why have you made 
the journey from Nantes to Roche-Periac? Come, 
open your satchel and read to us the documents it 
must contain.” 

“You truly believe-” 

“Of course I believe! We have, all five of us, 
these gentlemen and myself, performed our duty in 



186 


THE SECRET TOMB 


coming here and informing you of our identity. It 
is your turn to carry out your mission. We are all 
ears.” 

The gayety of the young girl spread around her 
such an atmosphere of cordiality that even Maitre 
Delarue himself felt its beneficent effects. Besides, 
the business was already in train; and he entered 
smoothly on ground over which the young girl had 
traced, in the midst of apparently impenetrable 
brushwood, a path which he could follow with per¬ 
fect ease. 

“But certainly,” said he. “But certainly . . . 
There is nothing else to do. . . . And I must com¬ 
municate what I know to you. . . . Excuse me . . . 
But this affair is so disconcerting.” 

Getting the better of the confusion into which he 
had been thrown, he recovered all the dignity which 
befits a lawyer. They set him in the seat of honor 
on a kind of shelf formed by an inequality of the 
ground, and formed a circle round him. Following 
Dorothy’s instructions, he opened his satchel with 
the air of importance of a man used to having every 
eye fixed on him and every ear stretched to catch 
his every word, and without waiting to be again 
pressed to speak, embarked on a discourse evidently 
prepared for the event of his finding himself, con¬ 
trary to all reasonable expectation, in the presence 
of some one at the appointed rendezvous. 

“My preamble will be brief,” he said, “for I am 
eager to come to the object of this reunion. On the 
day—it is fourteen years ago—on which I installed 
myself at Nantes in the office of a notary whose prac¬ 
tice I had bought, my predecessor, after having given 


WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 187 

me full information about the more complicated 
cases in hand, exclaimed: ‘Ah, but I was forgetting 
. . . not that it’s of any importance. . . . But all 
the same . . . Look, my dear confrere, this is the 
oldest set of papers in the office. . . . And a measly 
set too, since it only consists of a sealed letter with 
a note of instructions, which I will read to you: 

Missive intrusted to the strict care of the Sire Barbier, 
scrivener, and of his successors, to be opened on the 12th of 
July, 1921, at ?ioon, in front of the clock of the Chateau of 
Roche-Periac, and to be read in the presence of all pos¬ 
sessors of a gold medal struck at my instance. 

“There ! No other explanations. My predecessor 
did not receive any from the man from whom he 
had bought the practice. The most he could learn, 
after researches among the old registers of the 
parish of Periac, was that the Sire Barbier (Hippo- 
lyte Jean), scrivener, lived at the beginning of the 
eighteenth century. At what epoch was his office 
closed? For what reasons were his papers trans¬ 
ported to Nantes? Perhaps we may suppose that 
owing to certain circumstances, one of the lords of 
Roche-Periac left the country and settled down at 
Nantes with his furniture, his horses, and his house¬ 
hold down to the village scrivener. Anyhow, for 
nearly two hundred years the letter intrusted to the 
strict care of the scrivener Barbier and his succes¬ 
sors, lay at the bottom of drawers and pigeon-holes, 
without any one’s having tried to violate the secrecy 
enjoined by the writer of it. And so it came about 
that in all probability it would fall to my lot to 
break the seal!” 


18 8 


THE SECRET TOMB 


Maitre Delarue made a pause and looked at his 
auditors. They were, as they say, hanging on his 
lips. Pleased with the impression he had produced, 
he tapped the leather satchel, and continued: 

“Need I tell you that my thoughts have very often 
dwelt on this prospect and that I have been curious 
to learn the contents of such a letter? A journey 
even which I made to this chateau gave me no in¬ 
formation, in spite of my searches in the archives 
of the villages and towns of the district. Then the 
appointed time drew near. Before doing anything 
I went to consult the president of the civil court. 
A question presented itself. If the letter was to be 
considered a testamentary disposition, perhaps I 
ought not to open it except in the presence of that 
magistrate. That was my opinion. It was not his. 
He was of the opinion that we were confronted by 
a display of fantasy (he went so far as to murmur 
the word ‘humbug’) which was outside the scope of 
the law and that I should act quite simply. ‘A 
trysting-place beneath the elm,’ he said, joking, ‘has 
been fixed for you at noon on the 12th of July. Go 
there, Monsieur Delarue, break the seal of the mis¬ 
sive in accordance with the instructions, and come 
back and tell me all about it. I promise you not 
not to laugh if you come back looking like a fool.’ 
Accordingly, in a very sceptical state of mind, I took 
the train to Vannes, then the coach, and then hired 
a donkey to bring me to the ruins. You can imagine 
my surprise at finding that I was not alone under the 
elm—I mean the clock—at the rendezvous but that 
all of you were waiting for me.” 


WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 189 

The four young people laughed heartily. Marco 
Dario, of Genoa, said: 

“All the same the business grows serious.” 

George Errington, of London, added: 

“Perhaps the story of the treasure is not so 
absurd.” 

“Monsieur Delarue’s letter is going to inform 
us,” said Dorothy. 

So the moment had come. They gathered more 
closely round the notary. A certain gravity mingled 
with the gayety on the young faces; and it grew 
deeper when Maitre Delarue displayed before the 
eyes of all one of those large square envelopes which 
formerly one made oneself out of a thick sheet of 
paper. It was discolored with that peculiar shine 
which only the lapse of time can give to paper. 
It was sealed with five seals, once upon a time red 
perhaps, but now of a grayish violet seamed by a 
thousand little cracks like a network of wrinkles. 
In the left-hand corner at the top, the formula of 
transmission must have been renewed several times, 
traced afresh with ink by the successors of the 
scrivener Barbier. 

“The seals are quite intact,” said Monsieur 
Delarue. “You can even manage to make out the 
three Latin words of the motto.” 

“In robore fortuna” said Dorothy. 

“Ah, you know?” said the notary, surprised. 

“Yes, Monsieur Delarue, yes, they are the same 
as those engraved on the gold medals, and those I 
discovered just now, half rubbed out, under the face 
of the clock.” 

“We have here an indisputable connection,” said 


THE SECRET TOMB 


190 

the notary, “which draws together the different parts 
of the affair and confers on it an authenticity-” 

“Open the letter—open it, Monsieur Delarue,” 
said Dorothy impatiently. 

Three of the seals were broken; the envelope was 
unfolded. It contained a large sheet of parchment, 
broken into four pieces which separated and had to 
be put together again. 

From top to bottom and on both sides the sheet 
of parchment was covered with large hand-writing 
with bold down-strokes, which had evidently been 
written in indelible ink. The lines almost touched 
and the letters were so close together that the whole 
had the appearance of an old printed page in a very 
large type. 

“I’m going to read it,” murmured Monsieur 
Delarue. 

“Don’t lose a second—for the love of God!” 
cried Dorothy. 

He took a second pair of glasses from his pocket 
and put them on over the first, and read: 

“ ‘Written this day, the 12th of July , IJ2I . . . 

“Two centuries!” gasped the notary and began 
again: 

" 'Written this day, the 12th of July, 1721, the last day 
of my existence, to be read the 12th of July, 1921, the first 
day of my resurrection / " 

The notary stopped short. The young people 
looked at one another with an air of stupefaction. 

Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia, observed: 

“This gentleman was mad.” 

“The word resurrection is perhaps used in a sym- 



WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 191 

bolic sense,” said Maitre Delarue. “We shall learn 
from what follows: I will continue: 

" ‘My children’ . . ” 

He stopped again and said: 

“ ( My children’ . . . He is addressing you.” 

“For goodness sake, Maitre Delarue, do not stop 
again, I beg you!” exclaimed Dorothy. “All this is 
thrilling.” 

“Nevertheless . . .” 

“No, Maitre Delarue, comment is useless. We’re 
eager to know, aren’t we, comrades?” 

The four young men supported her vehemently. 

Thereupon the notary resumed his reading, with 
the hesitation and repetitions imposed by the difficul¬ 
ties of the text: 

“ 'My children, 

"'On leaving a meeting of the Academy of the sciences 
of Paris, to which Monsieur de Fontenelle had had the 
goodness to invite me, the illustrious author of the "Dis¬ 
courses on the Plurality of Worldsseized me by the arm 
and said: 

“ ‘Marquis, would you mind enlightening me on a point 
about which, it seems, you maintain a shrinking reserve? 
Hew did you get that wound on your left hand, get your 
fourth finger cut off at the very root? The story goes that 
you left that finger at the bottom of one of your retorts, 
for you have the reputation, Marquis, of being something of 
an alchemist, and of seeking, inside the walls of your 
Chateau of Roche-Periac, the elixir of life / 

“ ‘I do not seek it, Monsieur de Fontenelle,’ I answered, 
‘I possess it.’ 

“‘Truly?’ 

“ ‘Truly, Monsieur de Fontenelle, and if you will permit 
me to put you in possession of a small phial, the pitiless Fate 
will certainly have to wait till your hundredth year.’ 

“ ‘I accept with the greatest pleasure,’ he said, laughing—• 


i 9 2 the secret tomb 

‘on condition that you keep me company. We are of the 
same age—which gives us another forty good years to 
live.’ 

“ ‘For my part, Monsieur de Fontenelle, to live longer 
does not greatly appeal to me. What is the good of sticking 
stubbornly to a world in which no new spectacle can sur¬ 
prise and in which the day that is coming will be the same 
as the day that is done. What I wish to do is to come to 
life again, to come to life again in a century or two, to 
make the acquaintance of my grandchildren’s children, and 
see what men have done since our time. There w T ill be 
great changes here below, in the government of empires 
as well as in everyday life. I shall learn about them.’ 

“ ‘Bravo, Marquis!’ exclaimed Monsieur de Fontenelle, 
who seemed more and more amused. ‘Bravo! It is an¬ 
other elixir which will give you this marvelous power.’ 

“ ‘Another,’ I asserted. ‘I brought it back with me from 
India, where, as you know, I spent ten years of my youth, 
becoming the friend of the priests of that marvelous country, 
from which every revelation and every religion came to us. 
They initiated me into some of their chief mysteries.’ 

“ ‘Why not into all ?’ asked Monsieur de Fontenelle, with 
a touch of irony. 

“ ‘There are some secrets which they refused to reveal 
to me, such as the power to communicate with those other 
worlds, about which you have just discoursed so admirably, 
Monsieur de Fontenelle, and the power to live again.’ 

“Nevertheless, Marquis, you claim-’ 

“ ‘That secret, Monsieur de Fontenelle, I stole; and 
to punish me for the theft they sentenced me to the pun¬ 
ishment of having all my fingers torn off. After pulling 
off the first finger, they offered to pardon me, if I consented 
to restore the phial I had stolen. I told them where it 
was hidden. But I had taken the precaution beforehand 
to change the contents, having poured the elixir into another 
phial.’ 

“ ‘So that, at the cost of one of your fingers, you have 
purchased a kind of immortality. . . . Of which you pro¬ 
pose to make use. Eh, Marquis,’ said Monsieur de Fon¬ 
tenelle. 



WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 193 

“ ‘As soon as I shall have put my affairs in order,’ I 
answered; ‘that is to say, in about a couple of years.’ 

“ ‘You’re going to make use of it to live again ?’ 

“ ‘In the year of grace 1921.’ 

“My story caused Monsieur de Fontenelle the greatest 
amusement; and in taking leave of me, he promised to 
relate it in his Memoirs as a proof of my lively imagina¬ 
tion—and doubtless, as he said to himself, of my insanity.” 

Maitre Delarue paused to take breath and looked round 
the circle with questioning eyes. 

Marco Dario, of Genoa, threw back his head and laughed. 
The Russian showed his white teeth. The two Anglo- 
Saxons seemed greatly amused. 

“Rather a joke,” said George Errington, of London, 
with a chuckle. 

“Some farce,” said Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia. 

Dorothy said nothing; her eyes were thoughtful. 

Silence fell and Maitre Dalarue continued: 

“Monsieur de Fontenelle was wrong to laugh, my chil¬ 
dren. There was no imagination or insanity about it. 
The great Indian priests know things that we do not know 
and never shall know; and I am the master of one of the 
most wonderful of their secrets. The time has come to 
make use of it. I am resolved to do so. Last year, my wife 
was killed by accident, leaving me in bitter sorrow. My 
four sons, like me of a venturesome spirit, are fighting or 
in business in foreign lands. I live alone. Shall I drag 
on to the end an old age that is useless and without charm ? 
No. Everything is ready for my departure . . . and for 
my return. My old servants, Geoffrey and his wife, faithful 
companions for thirty years, with a full knowledge of my 
project, have sworn to obey me. I say good-bye to my age. 

“Learn, my children, the events which are about to take 
place at the Chateau of Roche-Periac. At two o’clock in 
the afternoon I shall fall into a stupor. The doctor, sum¬ 
moned by Geoffrey, will ascertain that my heart is no longer 
beating. I shall be quite dead as far as human knowledge 
goes; and my servants will nail me up in the coffin which 
is ready for me. When night comes, Geoffrey and his 
wife will take me out of that coffin and carry me on a 


THE SECRET TOMB 


194 

stretcher, to the ruins of Cocquesin tower, the oldest donjon 
of the Lords of Periac. Then they will fill the coffin with 
stones and nail it up again. 

“For his part, Master Barbier, executor of my will and 
administrator of my property, will find in my drawer in¬ 
structions, charging him to notify my four sons of my death 
and to convey to each of the four his share of his inheritance. 
Moreover by means of a special courier he will dispatch 
to each a gold medal which I have had struck, engraved 
with my motto and the date the 12th of July, 1921, the 
day of my resurrection. This medal will be transmitted 
from hand to hand, from generation to generation, beginning 
with the eldest son or grandson, in such a manner that not 
more than two persons shall know the secret at one time. 
Lastly Master Barbier will keep this letter, which I am 
going to seal with five seals, and which will be transmitted 
from scrivener to scrivener till the appointed date. 

“When you read this letter, my children, the hour 
of noon on the 12th of July, 1921, will have struck. You 
will be gathered together under the clock of my chateau, 
fifty yards from old Cocquesin tower, where I shall have 
been sleeping for two centuries. I have chosen it as my 
resting-place, calculating that, if the revolutions which I 
foresee destroy the buildings in use, they will leave alone 
that which is already a crumbling ruin. Then, going along 
the avenue of oaks, which my father planted, you will 
come to this tower, which will doubtless be much the same 
as it is to-day. You will stop under the arch from which 
the drawbridge was formerly raised, and one of you counting 
to the left, from the groove of the portcullis, the third stone 
above it, will push it straight before him, while another, 
counting on the right, always from the groove, the third 
stone above it, will do as the first is doing. Under this 
double pressure, exercised at the same time, the middle of 
the right wall will swing back inwards and form an incline, 
which will bring you to the bottom of a stone staircase in 
the thickness of the wall. 

“Lighted by a torch, you will ascend a hundred and 
thirty-two steps, they will bring you to a partition of plaster 
which Geoffrey will have built up after my death. You 


WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 195 

will break it down with a pick-ax, waiting for you on the 
last step, and you will see a small massive door, the key 
of which only turns if one presses at the same time the 
three bricks which form part of that step. 

“Through that door you will enter a chamber in which 
there will be a bed behind curtains. You will draw aside 
those curtains. I shall be sleeping there. 

“Do not be surprised, my children, at finding me younger 
perhaps than the portrait of me which Monsieur Nicolas de 
Largilliere, the King’s painter, painted last year, and which 
hangs at the head of my bed. Two centuries’ sleep, the 
resting of my heart, which will scarcely beat, will, I have no 
doubt, have filled up my wrinkles and restored youth to 
my features. It will not be an old man you will gaze upon. 

“My children, the phial will be on a stool beside the 
bed, wrapped in linen, corked with virgin wax. You will 
at once break the neck of the phial. While one of you 
opens my teeth with the point of a knife, another will pour 
the elixir, not drop by drop but in a thin trickle, which 
should flow down to the bottom of my throat. Some minutes 
will pass. Then little by little life will return. The beating 
of my heart will grow quicker. My breast will rise and 
fall; and my eyes will open. 

“Perhaps, my children, it will be necessary for you to 
speak in low voices, and not light up the room with too bright 
a light, that my eyes and ears may not suffer any shock. 
Perhaps on the other hand I shall only see you and hear 
you indistinctly, with enfeebled organs. I do not know. 
I foresee a period of torpor and uneasiness, during which 
I shall have to collect my thoughts as one does on awaking 
from sleep. Moreover I shall make no haste about it, 
and I beg you not to try to quicken my efforts. Quiet days 
and a nourishing diet will insensibly restore me to the 
sweetness of life. 

“Have no fear at all that I shall need to live at your 
expense. Unknown to my relations I brought back from 
the Indies four diamonds of extraordinary size, which I 
have hidden in a hiding-place there is no finding. They will 
easily suffice to keep me in luxury befitting my station. 

“Since I have to take into consideration that I may have 


THE SECRET TOMB 


196 

forgotten the secret hiding-place of the diamonds, I have 
set forth the secret in some lines enclosed herein in a second 
envelope bearing the designation ‘The Codicil.’ 

“Of this codicil I have not breathed a word, not even 
to my servant Geoffrey and his wife. If out of human 
weakness they bequeath to their children an account revealing 
my secret history, they will not be able to reveal the hiding- 
place of those four marvelous diamonds, which they have 
often admired and which they w r ill seek in vain after I am 
gone. 

“The enclosed envelope then will be handed over to me 
as soon as I return to life. In the event—to my thinking 
impossible, but which none the less your interests compel 
me to take into account—of destiny having betrayed me 
and of your finding no trace of me, you will yourselves 
open the envelope and learning the whereabouts of the 
hiding-place, take possession of the diamonds. Then and 
thereafter I declare that the ownership of the diamonds is 
vested in those of my descendants who shall present the 
gold medal, and that no person shall have the right to 
intervene in the fair partition of them, on which they shall 
agree among themselves, and I beg them to make that 
partition themselves as their consciences shall direct. 

“I have said what I have to say, my chlidren. I am about 
to enter into the silence and await your coming. I do not 
doubt that you will come from all the corners of the earth 
at the imperious summons of the gold medal. Sprung from 
the same stock, be as brothers and sisters among yourselves. 
Approach with serious minds him who sleeps, and deliver 
him from the bonds which keep him in the kingdom of 
darkness. 

“Written by my own hand, in perfect health of mind and 
body, this day, the 12th of July, 1721. Delivered under 
my hand and seal. 

“Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de-” 

Maitre Delarue was silent, bent nearer to the 
paper, and murmured: 

“The signature is scarcely legible: the name be- 



WILL OF MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL 197 

gins with a B or an R . . . the flourish muddles up 
all the letters.” 

Dorothy said slowly: 

“Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de 
Beaugreval.” 

“Yes, yes: that’s it!” cried the notary at once. 
“Marquis de Beaugreval. How did you know?” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 

Dorothy did not answer. She was still quite 
absorbed in the strange will of the Marquis. Her 
companions, their eyes fixed on her, seemed to be 
waiting for her to express an opinion; and since she 
remained silent, George Farrington, of London, 
said : 

“Not a bad joke. What?” 

She shook her head: 

“Is it quite certain, cousin, that it is a joke?” 

“Oh, mademoiselle! This resurrection . . . the 
elixir . . . the hidden diamonds!” 

“I don’t say that it isn’t,” said Dorothy, smiling. 
“The old fellow does seem to me a trifle cracked. 
Nevertheless the letter he has written to us is cer¬ 
tainly authentic; at the end of two centuries we have 
come, as he foresaw that we should, to the rendez¬ 
vous he appointed, and above all we are certainly 
members of the same family.” 

“I think that we might start embracing all over 
again, mademoiselle.” 

“I’m sure, if our ancestor permits it, I shall be 
charmed,” said Dorothy. 

“But he does permit it.” 

“We’ll go and ask him.” 

Maitre Delarue protested: 

“You’ll go without me, mademoiselle. Under¬ 
stand once and for all that I am not going to see 

iq8 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 199 

whether Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis 
de Beaugreval, is still alive at the age of two hundred 
and sixty-two years!” 

“But he isn’t as old as all that, Maitre Delarue. 
We need not count the two hundred years’ sleep. 
Then it’s only a matter of sixty-two years; that’s 
quite normal. His friend, Monsieur de Fontenelle, 
as the Marquis predicted and thanks to an elixir 
of life, lived to be a hundred.” 

“In fact you do not believe in it, mademoiselle?” 

“No. But all the same there should be some¬ 
thing in it.” 

“What else can there be in it?” 

“We shall know presently. But at the moment I 
confess to my shame that I should like before— a ” 

She paused; and with one accord they cried: 

“What?” 

She laughed. 

“Well, the truth is I’m hungry—hungry with a 
two-hundred-year-old hunger—as hungry as the 
Marquis de Beaugreval must be. Has any of you 
by any chance-” 

The three young men darted away. One ran to 
his motor-cycle, the other two to their horses. Each 
had a haversack full of provisions which they brought 
and set out on the grass at Dorothy’s feet. The 
Russian Kourobelef, who had only a slice of bread, 
dragged a large flat stone in front of her by way 
of table. 

“This is really nice!” she said, clapping her 
hands. “A real family lunch! We invite you to 
join us, Maitre Delarue, and you also, soldier of 
Wrangel.” 




200 


THE SECRET TOMB 


The meal, washed down by the good wine of 
Anjou, was a merry one. They drank the health of 
the worthy nobleman who had had the excellent 
idea of bringing them together at his chateau; and 
Webster made a speech in his honor. 

The diamonds, the codicil, the survival of their 
ancestor and his resurrection had become so many 
trifles to which they paid no further attention. For 
them the adventure came to an end with the reading 
of the letter and the improvised meal. And even 
so it was amazing enough! 

“And so amusing!” said Dorothy, who kept 
laughing. “I assure you that I have never been so 
amused—never.” 

Her four cousins, as she called them, hung on her 
lips and never took their eyes off her, amused and 
astonished by everything she said. At first sight 
they had understood her and she had understood 
them, without the five of them having to pass 
through the usual stages of becoming intimate, 
through which people who are thrown together for 
the first time generally have to pass. To them she 
was grace, beauty, spirit and freshness. She repre¬ 
sented the charming country from which their 
ancestors had long ago departed; they found in her 
at once a sister of whom they were proud and a 
woman they burned to win. 

Already rivals, each of them strove to appear at 
his best. 

Errington, Webster, and Dario organized con¬ 
tests, feats of strength, exhibitions of balancing; they 
ran races. The only prize they asked for was that 
Dorothy, queen of the tourney, should regard them 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 201* 


with favor with those beautiful eyes, of which they 
felt the profound seduction, and which appeared to 
them the most beautiful eyes they had ever seen. 

But the winner of the tournament was Dorothy 
herself. Directly she took part in it, all that the 
others could do was to sit down, look on, and 
wonder. A fragment of wall, of which the top had 
crumbled so thin that it was nearly a sharp edge, 
served her as a tight-rope. She climbed trees and 
let herself drop from branch to branch. Springing 
upon the big horse of Dario she forced him through 
the paces of a circus horse. Then, seizing the bridle 
of the pony, she did a turn on the two of them, 
lying down, standing up, or astride. 

She performed all these feats with a modest grace, 
full of reserve, without a trace of coquetry. The 
young men were no less enthusiastic than amazed.. 
The acrobat delighted them. But the young girl 
inspired them with a respect from which not one of 
them dreamt of departing. Who was she? They 
called her princess, laughing; but their laughter was 
full of deference. Really they did not understand 
it. 

It was not till three in the afternoon that they 
decided to carry the adventure to its end. They all 
started to do so in the spirit of picnickers. 
Maitre Delarue, to whose head the good wine of 
Anjou had mounted in some quantity, with his broad 
bow unknotted and his tall hat on the back of his 
head, led the way on his donkey, chanting couplets 
about the resurrection of Marquis Lazarus. Dario, 
of Genoa, imitated a mandolin accompaniment. 
Errington and Webster held over Dorothy’s head, 


202 THE SECRET TOMB 

to keep the sun off it, an unbrella made of ferns and 
wild flowers. 

They went round the hillock, which was composed 
of the debris of the old chateau, behind the clock and 
along a beautiful avenue of trees centuries old, 
which ended in a circular glade in the middle of 
which rose a magnificent oak. 

Maitre Delarue said in the tone of a guide: 

“These are the trees planted by the Marquis de 
Beaugreval’s father. You will observe their vigor. 
Venerable trees, if ever there were any! Behold 
the oak king! Whole generations have taken shelter 
under his boughs. Hats off, gentlemen!” 

Then they came to the woody slopes of a small 
hill, on the summit of which in the middle of a 
circular embankment, formed by the ruins of the 
wall that had encircled it, rose a tower oval in 
shape. 

“Cocquesin tower,” said Maitre Delarue, more 
and more cheerful. “Venerable ruins, if ever there 
were any! Remnants of the feudal keep! That’s 
where the sleeping Marquis of the enchanted wood 
is waiting for us, whom we’re going to resuscitate 
with a thimbleful of foaming elixir.” 

The blue sky appeared through the empty win¬ 
dows. Whole masses of wall had fallen down. 
However, the whole of the right side seemed to be 
intact; and if there really was a staircase and some 
kind of habitation, as the Marquis had stated, it 
could only be in that part of the tower. 

And now the arch, against which the draw-bridge 
had formerly been raised opened before them. The 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 203 

approach to it was so blocked by interlaced briars 
and bushes, that it took them a long time to reach 
the vault in which were the stones indicated by the 
Marquis de Beaugreval. 

Then, another barrier of fallen stones, and 
another effort to clear a double path to the two 
walls. 

“Here we are,” said Dorothy at last. She had 
directed their labors. “And we can be quite sure 
that no one has been before us.” 

Before beginning the operation which had been 
enjoined on them they went to the end of the vault. 
It opened on to the immense nave formed by the 
interior of the keep, its stories fallen away, its only 
roof the sky. They saw, one above the other, the 
embrasures of four fireplaces, under chimney- 
pieces of sculptured stone, full now of wild plants. 

One might have described it as the oval of a 
Roman amphitheater, with a series of small vaulted 
chambers above, of which one perceived the gaping 
openings, separated by passages into distinct groups. 

“The visitors who risk coming to Roche-Periac 
can enter from this side,” said Dorothy. “Wedding 
parties from the neighborhood must come here now 
and then. Look: there are greasy pieces of paper 
and sardine-tins scattered about on the ground.” 

“It’s odd that the draw-bridge vault hasn’t been 
cleared out,” said Webster. 

“By whom? Do you think that picnickers are 
going to waste their time doing what we have done, 
when on the opposite side there are easy entrances?” 

They did not seem in any hurry to get to work to 
verify the statements of the Marquis; and it was 


204 THE SECRET TOMB 

rather to have their consciences clear and to be able 
to say to themselves without any equivocation, “The 
adventure is finished,” that they attacked the walls 
of the vault. 

Dorothy, sceptical as the others, again carelessly 
took command, and said: “Come on, cousins. You 
didn’t come from America and Russia to stand still 
with folded arms. We owe our ancestor this proof 
of our good will before we have the right to throw 
our medals into drawers. Dario, of Genoa— 
Errington, be so good as to push, each on the side 
you are, the third stone at the top. Yes: those two, 
since this is the groove in which the old portcullis 
worked.” 

The stones were a good height above the ground, 
so that the Englishman and the Italian had to raise 
their arms to reach them. Following Dorothy’s 
advice, they climbed on to the shoulders of Webster 
and Kourobelef. 

“Are you ready?” 

“We’re ready,” replied Errington and Dario. 

“Then push gently with a continuous pressure. 
And above all have faith! Maitre Delarue has no 
faith. So I am not asking him to do anything.” 

The two young men set their hands against the 
two stones and pushed hard. 

“Come: a little vigor!” said Dorothy in a tone 
of jest. “The statements of the Marquis are gospel 
truth. He has written that the stone on the right 
will slip back. Let the stone on the right slip back.” 

“Mine is moving,” said the Englishman, on the 
left. 

“So is mine,” said the Italian, on the right. 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 205 

“It isn’t possible!” cried Dorothy incredulously. 

“But it is! But it is!” declared the Englishman. 
“And the stone above it, too. They are slipping 
back from the top.” 

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when 
the two stones, forming one piece, slipped back into 
the interior of the wall and revealed in the semi¬ 
darkness the foot of a staircase and some steps. 

The Englishman uttered a cry of triumph: 

“The worthy gentleman did not lie ! There’s the 
staircase!” 

For a moment they remained speechless. Not 
that there was anything extraordinary in the affair 
so far; but it was a confirmation of the first part of 
the Marquis de Beaugreval’s statement; and they 
asked themselves if the rest of his predictions would 
not be fulfilled with the same exactness. 

“If it turns out that there are a hundred and 
thirty-two steps, I shall declare myself convinced,” 
said Errington. 

“What?” said Maitre Delarue, who also appeared 
deeply impressed. “Do you mean to assert that the 
Marquis-” 

“That the Marquis is awaiting us like a man who 
is expecting our visit.” 

“You’re raving,” growled the notary. “Isn’t he, 
mademoiselle?” 

The young men hauled themselves on to the land¬ 
ing formed by the stones which had slipped back. 
Dorothy joined them. Two electric pocket-lamps 
took the place of the torch suggested by the Marquis 
de Beaugreval, and they set about mounting the high 
steps which wound upwards in a very narrow space. 



20 6 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Fifteen—sixteen—seventeen,” Dario counted. 

To hearten himself, Maitre Delarue sang the 
couplets of “da Tour, prende garde.” But at the 
thirtieth step he began to save his breath. 

“It’s a steep climb, isn’t it?” said Dorothy. 

“Yes it is. But it’s chiefly the idea of paying a 
visit to a dead man. It makes my legs a bit shaky.” 

At the fiftieth step a hole in the wall let in some 
light. Dorothy looked out and saw the woods of 
La Roche-Periac; but a cornice, jutting out, pre¬ 
vented her from seeing the ground at the foot of 
the keep. 

They continued the ascent. Maitre Delarue kept 
singing in a more and more shaky voice, and towards 
the end it was rather a groaning than a singing. 

“A hundred ... a hundred and ten ... a 
hundred and twenty.” 

At a hundred and thirty-two he made the an¬ 
nouncement : 

“It is indeed the last. A wall blocks the stair¬ 
case. About this also our ancestor was telling the 
truth.” 

“And are there three bricks let into the step?” 

“There are.” 

“And a pickax?” 

“It’s here.” 

“Come: on getting to the top of the staircase and 
examining what we find there, every detail agrees 
with the will, so that we have only to carry out the 
good man’s final instructions.” She said: “Break 
down the wall, Webster. It’s only a plaster par¬ 
tition.” 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 207 

At the first blow in fact the wall crumbled away, 
disclosing a small, low door. 

Goodness!” muttered the lawyer, who was no 
longer trying to dissemble his uneasiness. “The pro¬ 
gram is indeed being carried out item by item.” 

“Ah, you’re becoming a trifle less sceptical, 
Maitre Delarue. You’ll be declaring next that the 
door will open.” 

“I do declare it. This old lunatic was a clever 
mechanician and a scenical producer of the first 
order.” 

“You speak of him as if he were dead,” observed 
Dorothy. 

The notary seized her arm. 

“Of course I do ! I’m quite willing to admit that 
he’s behind this door. But alive? No, no! 
Certainly not!” 

She put her foot on one of the bricks. Errington 
and Dario pressed the two others. The door jerked 
violently, quivered, and turned on its hinges. 

“Holy Virgin!” murmured Dario. “We’re con¬ 
fronted by a genuine miracle. Are we going to see 
Satan?” 

By the light of their lamps they perceived a fair¬ 
sized room with an arched ceiling. No ornament 
relieved the bareness of the stone walls. There was 
nothing in the way of furniture in it. But one 
judged that there was a small, low room, which 
formed an alcove, from the piece of tapestry, roughly 
nailed to a beam, which ran along the left side of it. 

The five men and Dorothy did not stir, silent, 
motionless. Maitre Delarue, extremely pale, seemed 
very ill at ease indeed. 


208 THE SECRET TOMB 

Was it the fumes of wine, or the distress inspired 
by mystery? 

No one was smiling any longer. Dorothy could 
not withdraw her eyes from the piece of tapestry. 
So the adventure did not come to an end with the 
astonishing meeting of the Marquis’s heirs, nor with 
the reading of his fantastic will. It went as far as 
the hollow stairway in the old tower, to which no 
one had ever penetrated, to the very threshold of 
the inviolable retreat in which the Marquis had 
drunk the draft which brings sleep . . . Or which 
kills. What was there behind the tapestry ? Abed, 
of course . . . some garments which kept perhaps 
the shape of the body they had covered . . . and 
besides, a handful of ashes. 

She turned her head to her companions as if to 
say to them: 

“Shall I go first?” 

They stood motionless—undecided, ill at ease. 

Then she took a step forward—then two. The 
tapestry was within reach. With a hesitating hand 
she took hold of the edge of it, while the young 
men drew nearer. 

They turned the light of their lamps into the 
alcove. 

At the back of it was a bed. On that bed lay a 
man. 

This vision was, in spite of everything, so un¬ 
expected, that for a few seconds Dorothy’s legs 
almost failed her, and she let the tapestry fall. It 
was Archibald Webster who, deeply perturbed, 
raised it quickly, and walked briskly to this sleeping 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 209 

man, as if he were about to shake him and awake 
him forthwith. The others tumbled into the alcove 
after him. Archibald stopped short at the bed, with 
his arm raised, and dared not make another move-* 
ment. 

One might have judged the man on the bed to 
be sixty years old. 

But in the strange paleness of that wholly color¬ 
less skin, beneath which flowed no single drop of 
blood, there was something that was of no age. A 
face absolutely hairless. Not an eyelash, no eye¬ 
brows. The nose, cartilage and all, transparent 
like the noses of some consumptives. No flesh. A 
jaw, bones, cheek-bones, large sunken eyelids. That 
was the face between two sticking-out ears; and 
above it was an enormous forehead running up into, 
an entirely bald skull. 

“The finger—the finger!” murmured Dorothy. 

The fourth finger of the left hand was missing, 
cut exactly level with the palm as the will had stated. 

The man was dressed in a coat of chestnut-colored 
cloth, a black silk waistcoat, embroidered in green, 
and breeches. His stockings were of fine wool. He 
wore no shoes. 

“He must be dead,” said one of the young men 
in a low voice. 

To make sure, it would have been necessary to 
bend down and apply one’s ear to the breast above 
the heart. But they had an odd feeling that, at the 
slightest touch, this shape of a man would crumble 
to dust and so vanish like a phantom. 

Besides, to make such an experiment, would it 


210 


THE SECRET TOMB 


not be to commit sacrilege? To suspect death and 
question a corpse: none of them dared. 

Dorothy shivered, her womanly nerves strained 
to excess. Maitre Delarue besought her: 

“Let’s get away. . . . It’s got nothing to do with 
us. . . . It’s a devilish business.” 

But George Errington had an idea. He took a 
small mirror from his pocket and held it close to the 
man’s lips. After the lapse of some seconds there 
was a film on it. 

“OhI I b-b-believe he’s alive!” he stammered. 

“He’s alive! He’s alive!” muttered the young 
people, keeping with difficulty their excitement 
within bounds. 

Maitre Delarue’s legs were so shaky that he had 
to sit down on the foot of the bed. He murmured 
again and again: 

“A devilish business ! We’ve no right-” 

They kept looking at one another with troubled 
faces. The idea that this dead man was alive—for 
he was dead, undeniably dead—the idea that this 
dead man was alive shocked them as something 
monstrous. 

And yet was not the evidence that he was alive 
quite as strong as the evidence that he was dead? 
They believed in his death because it was impossible 
that he should be alive. But could they deny the 
evidence of their own eyes because that evidence was 
against all reason? 

Dorothy said: 

“Look: his chest rises and falls—you can see it— 
ever so slowly and ever so little. But it does. Then 
Le is not dead.” 



THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 211 


They protested. 

“No . . . It’s out of the question. Such a phe¬ 
nomenon would be inexplicable.” 

“I’m not so sure . . . I’m not so sure. It might 
be a kind of lethargy ... a kind of hypnotic 
trance,” she murmured. 

“A trance which lasted two hundred years?” 

“I don’t know ... I don’t understand it.” 

“Well?” 

“Well, we must act.” 

“But how?” 

“As the will tells us to act. The instructions are 
quite definite. Our duty is to execute them blindly 
and without question.” 

“How?” 

“We must try to awaken him with the elixir of 
which the will speaks.” 

“Here it is,” said Marco Dario, picking up from 
the stool a small object wrapped in linen. He un¬ 
folded the wrapping and displayed a phial, of antique 
shape, heavy, of crystal, with a round bottom and 
long neck which terminated in a large wax cork. 

He handed it to Dorothy, who broke off the top 
of the neck with a sharp tap against the edge of the 
stool. 

“Has any of you a knife?” she asked. “Thank 
you, Archibald. Open the blade and introduce the 
point between the teeth as the will directs.” 

They acted as might a doctor confronted by a 
patient whom he does not know exactly how to 
handle, but whom he nevertheless treats, without 
the slightest hesitation, according to the formal pre¬ 
scription in use in similar cases. They would see 


212 


THE SECRET TOMB 


what happened. The essential thing was to carry¬ 
out the instructions. 

Archibald Webster did not find it easy to perform 
his task. The lips were tightly closed, the upper 
teeth, for the most part black and decayed, were so 
firmly wedged against the lower that the knife- 
. point could not force its way between them. He had 
to introduce it sideways, and then raise the handle 
to force the jaws apart. 

“Don’t move,” said Dorothy. 

She bent down. Her right hand, holding the 
phial, tilted it gently. A few drops of a liquid of 
the color and odor of green Chartreuse fell between 
the lips; then an even trickle flowed from the phial, 
which was soon empty. 

“That’s done,” she said, straightening herself. 

Looking at her companions, she tried to smile. 
All of them were staring at the dead man. 

She murmured: “We’ve got to wait. It doesn’t 
work straightaway.” 

And as she uttered the words she thought: 

“And then what? I am ready to admit that it 
will have an effect and that this man will awake from 
sleep! Or rather from death. . . . For such a sleep 
is nothing but death. No: really we are the victims 
of a collective hallucination. . . . No: there was no 
film on the mirror. No: the chest does not rise and 
fall. No—a thousand times no! One does not 
come to life again!” 

“Three minutes gone,” said Marco Dario. 

And watch in hand, he counted, minute by minute, 
five more minutes—then five more. 

The waiting of these six persons would have been 


THE ELIXIR OF RESURRECTION 213 

incomprehensible, had its explanation not been found 
in the fact that all the events foretold by the Mar¬ 
quis de Beaugreval had followed one another with 
mathematical precision. There had been a series of 
facts which was very like a series of miracles, which 
compelled the witnesses of those facts to be patient 
—at least till the moment fixed for the supreme 
miracle. 

“Fifteen minutes,” said the Italian. 

A few more seconds passed. Of a sudden they 
quivered. A hushed exclamation burst from the lips 
of each. The man’s eyelids had moved . 

In a moment the phenomenon was repeated, and 
so clearly and distinctly that further doubt was im¬ 
possible. It was the twitching of two eyes that tried 
to open. At the same time the arms stirred. The 
hands quivered. 

“Oh!” stuttered the distracted notary. “He’s 
alive 1 He’s alive 1 ” 


CHAPTER XIII 


LAZARUS 

Dorothy gazed; her eyes missed no slightest 
movement. Like her, the young men remained 
motionless, with drawn faces. The Italian, how¬ 
ever, just sketched the sign of the cross. 

“He’s alive!” broke in Maitre Delarue. “Look; 
he’s looking at us.” 

A strange gaze. It did not shift; it did not try 
to see. The gaze of the newly born, animated by 
no thought. Vague, unconscious, it shunned the 
light of the lamps and seemed ready to be extin¬ 
guished in a new sleep. On the other hand the rest 
of the body became instinct with life, as if the blood 
resumed its normal course under the impulsion of 
a heart which again began to beat. The arms and 
the hands moved with purposed movements. Then 
suddenly the legs slipped off the bed. The bust was 
raised. After several attempts the man sat up. 

Then they saw him face to face; and since one 
of the young men raised his lamp that its light might 
not shine in his eyes, that lamp lit up on the wall 
of the alcove above the bed the portrait of which 
the Marquis had made mention. They could then 
perceive that it was indeed the portrait of the man. 
The same enormous brow, the same eyes deeply sunk 
in their orbits, the same high cheek-bones, the same 


LAZARUS 


215 

bony jaw, the same projecting ears. But the man, 
contrary to the prediction in the letter, had greatly 
aged and grown considerably thinner, for the por¬ 
trait represented a nobleman of good appearance 
and sufficiently plump. 

Twice he tried to stand upright without succeed¬ 
ing. He was too weak; his legs refused to support 
him. He seemed also to be laboring under a heavy 
oppression and to breathe with difficulty, either be¬ 
cause he had lost the habit or because he needed 
more air. Dorothy observed two planks nailed to 
the wall, pointed them out to Dario and Webster, 
and signed to them to pull them down. It was easy 
to do so, for they were not nailed very firmly to the 
wall; and they uncovered a small round window, a 
bull’s-eye rather, not more than a foot or fifteen 
inches across. 

A whiff of fresh air blew into the room all round 
the man sitting on the bed; and for all that he ap¬ 
peared to have no understanding of anything, he 
turned towards the window, and opening his mouth, 
drew in great breaths. 

All these trifling incidents were spread over a con¬ 
siderable time. The astonished witnesses of them 
had a feeling that they were taking part in the 
mysterious phases of a resurrection which they were 
wholly unable to consider final. Every minute 
gained by this living dead man appeared to them a 
new miracle which passed all imagining, and they 
hoped for the inevitable event which would restore 
things to their natural order, and which would be 
as it were the disarticulation and crumbling away of 
this incredible automaton. 


216 THE SECRET TOMB. 

Dorothy stamped her foot impatiently, as if she 
were struggling against herself and trying to shake 
off a torpor. 

She turned away from this sight which fascinated 
her, and her face took on an expression of such pro¬ 
found thought, that her companions withdrew their 
eyes from the man to watch her. Her eyes were 
seeking something. Their blue irises became of a 
deeper blue. They seemed to see beyond what ordi¬ 
nary eyes see and to pursue the truth into more dis¬ 
tant regions. 

At the end of a minute or two she said: 

“We must try.” 

She went firmly to the bed. After all here was a 
clear and definite phenomenon; it had to be taken 
into account: this man was alive. It was necessary 
therefore to treat him as a living being, who has ears 
to hear and a mouth to speak with, and who dis¬ 
tinguishes the things about him by a personal exist¬ 
ence. This man had a name. Every circumstance 
pointed directly to the fact that his presence in this 
sealed chamber was the result not of a miracle—a 
hypothesis which they need only examine as a last 
resort—but of an experiment that had succeeded—a 
hypothesis which one had no right to set aside for 
a priori reasons, however astonishing it might appear 
to be. 

Then -why not question him? 

She sat down beside him, took his hands, which 
were cold and moist, in hers and said gravely: 

“We have hastened hither at your summons 
. . . We are they to whom the gold medal-” 

She stopped. The words were not coming easily 



LAZARUS 


217 

to her. They seemed to her absurd and childish; 
and she was quite certain that they must appear so 
to those who heard them. But she must make an 
effort to continue: 

“In our families the gold medal has passed from 
hand to hand right down to us. . . . It is now for 
two centuries that the tradition has been forming 
and that your will-” 

But she was incapable of continuing on these 
pompous lines. Another voice within her murmured: 

“Goodness, how idiotic what I am saying is!” 

However, the hands of the man were growing 
warm from their contact with hers. He almost 
wore an air of hearing the noise of her words and 
of understanding that they were addressed to him. 
And so, dropping the phrase-making, she brought 
herself to speak to him simply, as to a poor man 
whom his resurrection did not set apart from human 
necessities: 

“Are you hungry? . . . Do you want to eat? 
. . . to drink? Answer. What would you like? 
. . . My friends and I will try ...” 

The old man, with the light full on his face, his 
mouth open, his lower lip hanging down, preserved 
a dull and stupid countenance, animated by no ex¬ 
pression, no desire. 

Without turning away from him, Dorothy called 
out to the notary: 

“Don’t you think we ought to offer him the second 
envelope, Maitre Delarue, the codicil? His under¬ 
standing may perhaps awake at the sight of this 
paper which formerly belonged to him, and which, 



2l8 


THE SECRET TOMB 

according to the instructions in the will, we’re to 
hand over to him.” 

Maitre Delarue agreed with her and passed the 
envelope to her. She held it out to the old man, 
saying: 

“Here are the directions for finding the diamonds, 
written by yourself. No one knows these directions. 
Here they are.” 

She stretched out her hand. It was clear that the 
old man tried to respond with a similar movement. 
She accentuated the gesture. He lowered his eyes 
towards the envelope; and his fingers opened to re¬ 
ceive it. 

“You quite understand?” she asked. “You are 
going to open this envelope. It contains the secret 
of the diamonds—a fortune.” 

Once more she stopped abruptly, as if struck by a 
sudden thought, something she had unexpectedly 
observed. 

Webster said to her: 

“He certainly understands. When he opens the 
letter and reads it, the whole of the past will come 
back to his memory. We may give it to him.” 

George Errington supported him. 

“Yes, mademoiselle, we may give it to him. It’s 
a secret which belongs to him.” 

Dorothy however did not perform the action she 
had suggested. She looked at the old man with the 
most earnest attention. Then she took the lamp, 
moved it away, then near, examined the mutilated 
hand, and then suddenly burst into a fit of wild 
laughter; it burst out with all the violence of laughter 
long restrained. 


LAZARUS 


219 


Bent double, holding her ribs, she laughed till it 
hurt her. Her pretty head shook her wavy hair in 
a series of jerks. And it was a laugh so fresh and 
so young, of such irresistible gayety that the young 
men burst out laughing in their turn. Maitre 
Delarue, on the other hand, irritated by a hilarity 
which seemed to him out of place in the circumstances 
protested in a tone of annoyance: 

“Really, I’m amazed. . . . There’s nothing to 
laugh at in all this. . . . We are in the presence of 
a really extraordinary occurrence ...” 

His shocked air redoubled Dorothy’s merriment. 
She stammered: 

“Yes—extraordinary—a miracle! Goodness, 
how funny it is! And what a pleasure it is to let 
one’s self go! I had been holding myself in quite 
long enough. Yes, I was manifestly serious . . .. 
uneasy. . . . But all the same I did want to laugh! 
. . . It is all so funny!” 

The notary muttered: 

“I don’t see anything funny in it. . . . The Mar- 

• n 

quis- 

Dorothy’s delight passed all bounds. She re¬ 
peated, wringing her hands, with tears in her eyes: 

“The Marquis! . . . The friend of Fontenelle! 
The revivified Marquis! Lazarus de Beaugreval! 
Then you didn’t see?” 

“I saw the film on the mirror ... the eyes 
open.” 

“Yes, yes:* I know. But the rest?” 

“What rest?” 

“In his mouth?” 

“What on earth is it?” 



220 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“There’s a . . . ” 

“A what? Out with it!” 

“A false tooth!” 

Maitre Delarue repeated slowly: 

“There’s a false tooth?” 

“Yes, a molar ... a molar all of gold!” 

“Well, what about it?” 

Dorothy did not immediately reply. She gave 
Maitre Delarue plenty of time to collect his wits and 
to grasp the full value of this discovery. 

He said again in a less assured tone: 

“Well?” 

“Well, there you are?” she said, very much out 
of breath. “I ask myself, with positive anguish: did 
they make gold teeth in the days of Louis XIV and 
Louis XV? . . . Because, you see, if the Marquis 
was unable to get his gold tooth before he died, he 
must have had his dentist come here—to this tower 
—while he was dead. That is to say, he must have 
learnt from the newspapers, or from some other 
source, that he could have a false tooth put in the 
place of the one which used to ache in the days of 
Louis XIV.” 

Dorothy had finally succeeded in repressing the 
ill-timed mirth which had so terribly shocked Maitre 
Delarue. She was merely smiling—but smiling with 
an extremely mischievous and delighted air. Natur¬ 
ally the four strangers, grouped closely round her, 
were also smiling with the air of people amused 
beyond words. 

On his bed, the man, always impassive and stupid, 
continued his breathing exercises. The notary drew 
his companions out of the alcove, into the outer room 


LAZARUS 


221 


so that they formed a group with their backs to the 
bed, and said in a low voice: 

“Then, according to you, mademoiselle, this is a 
mystification?” 

“I’m afraid so,” she said, tossing her head with 
a humorous air. 

“But the Marquis?” 

“The Marquis has nothing to do with the mat¬ 
ter,” she said. “The adventure of the Marquis came 
to an end on the 12th of July, 1721, when he swal¬ 
lowed a drug which put an end to his brilliant 
existence for good and all. All that remains of the 
Marquis, in spite of his hopes of a resurrection, is: 
firstly, a pinch of ashes mingled with the dust of 
this room; secondly, the authentic and curious letter 
which Maitre Delarue read to us; thirdly, a lot of 
enormous diamonds hidden somewhere or other; 
fourthly, the clothes he was wearing at the supreme 
hour when he voluntarily shut himself up in his 
tomb, that is to say in this room.” 

“And those clothes?” 

“Our man is dressed in them—unless he bought 
others, since the old ones must have been in a very 
bad state.” 

“But how could he get here? This window is too 
narrow; besides its inaccessible. Then how? . . . ” 

“Doubtless the same way we did.” 

“Impossible! Think of all the obstacles, the 
difficulties, the wall of briers which barred the 
road.” 

“Are we sure that this wall was not already pierced 
in some other place, that the plaster partition had 
not been broken down and reconstructed, that the 


222 THE SECRET TOMB 

door of this room had not been opened before we 
came?” 

“But it would have been necessary for this man 
to know the secret combinations of the Marquis, the 
mechanical device of the two stones and so on.” 

“Why not? Perhaps the Marquis left a copy of 
his letter ... or a draft of it. But no. . . . Of 
course! . . . Better than that! We know the truth 
from the Marquis de Beaugreval himself. . . . He 
foresaw it, since he alludes to an always possible de¬ 
fection of his old servant, Geoffrey, and takes into 
account the possibility of the good fellow’s writing 
a description of what had taken place. This descrip¬ 
tion the good fellow did write, and along different 
lines it has come down to our time.” 

“It’s a simple supposition.” 

“It’s a supposition more than probable, Maitre 
Delarue, since besides us, besides these four young 
men and myself, there are other families in which 
the history, or a part of the history of Beaugreval, 
has been handed down; and as a consequence for 
some months I’ve been fighting for the possession of 
the indispensable gold medal stolen from my 
father.” 

Her words made a very deep impression. She 
entered into details: 

“The family of Chagny-Roborey in the Orne, 
the family of Argonne in the Ardennes, the family 
of Davernoie in Vendee, are so many focuses of the 
tradition. And around it dramas, robberies, assassi¬ 
nations, madness, a regular boiling up of passion 
and violence.” 


LAZARUS 


223 

“Nevertheless,” observed Errington, “here there 
is no one but us. What are the others doing?” 

“They’re waiting. They’re waiting for a date of 
which they are ignorant. They are waiting for the 
medal. I saw in front of the church of Roche- 
Periac a tramp and a factory hand, a woman, from 
Paris. I saw two poor mad people who came to the 
rendezvous and are waiting at the edge of the water. 
A week ago I handed over to the police a dangerous 
criminal of the name of d’Estreicher, a distant con¬ 
nection of my family, who had committed a murder 
to obtain possession of the gold medal. Will you 
believe me now when I tell you that we are dealing 
with an impostor?” 

Dario said: 

“Then the man who is here has come to play the 
same part as the Marquis expected to play two hun¬ 
dred years after his death?” 

“Of course.” 

“With what object?” 

“The diamonds, I tell you—the diamonds!” 

“But since he knew of their existence, he had only 
to search for them and appropriate them.” 

<f You can take it from me that he has searched 
for them and without ceasing, but in vain. A fresh 
proof that the man only knew Geoffrey’s story, since 
Geoffrey had not been informed by his master of 
their hiding-place. And it is in order to learn where 
this hiding-place is, to be present at the meeting of 
the descendants of the Marquis de Beaugreval, that 
he is playing to-day, the 12th of July, I9 2I > after 
months and years of preparation, the part of the 
Marquis.” 


224 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“A dangerous part! An impossible part!” 

“Possible for at least some hours, which would be 
enough. What do I say, some hours? But just 
think: at the end of ten minutes we were all of one 
mind about giving him the second envelope which 
contains the key to the enigma, and which was prob¬ 
ably the actual object of his enterprise. He must 
have known of the existence of a codicil, of a docu¬ 
ment giving directions. But where to find that docu¬ 
ment. No longer any scrivener Barbier—no longer 
any successors. But where to find it? Why here! 
At the meeting on the 12th of July. Logically, the 
codicil must be brought to that meeting. Logically, 
it would be handed over to him. And as a matter 
of fact I had it in my hand. I held it out to him. 
A second later he would have obtained from it the 
information he wanted. After that, good-bye. The 
Marquis de Beaugreval, once possessor of the dia¬ 
monds of the Marquis de Beaugreval, would retire 
into the void, that is to say he would bolt at full 
speed.” 

Webster asked: 

“Why didn’t you give him the envelope? Did 
you guess?” 

“Guess? No. But I distrusted him. In offering 
it to him I was above all things making an experi¬ 
ment. What evidence it would be against him, if 
he accepted my offer by a gesture of acceptance, in¬ 
explicable at the end of such a short period? He 
did accept. I saw his hand tremble with impatience. 
I knew where I was. But at the same time Fortune 
was kind to me; I saw that little bit of gold in his 
mouth.” 


LAZARUS 


225 

It was all linked together in a flawless chain of 
reasoning. Dorothy had set forth the coordination 
of events, causes and effects, as one displays a piece 
of tapestry in which the complicated play of design 
and color produces the most harmonious unity. 

The four young men were astounded; not one of 
them threw any doubt on her statement. 

Archibald Webster said: 

“One would think that you had been present 
throughout the whole adventure.” 

“Yes,” said Dario. “The revivified Marquis 
played a whole comedy before you.” 

“What a power of observation and what terrible 
logic!” said Errington, of London. 

And Webster added: 

“And what intuition!” 

Dorothy did not respond to the praise with her 
habitual smile. One would have said that events 
were happening in a manner far from pleasing to 
her, which seemed to promise others which she dis¬ 
trusted in advance. But what events? What was 
there to fear? 

In the silence Maitre Delarue suddenly cried: 

“Well, for my part, I assert that you’re making 
a mistake. I’m not at all of your opinion, mademoi¬ 
selle.” 

Maitre Delarue was one of those people who 
cling the more firmly to an opinion the longer they 
have been adopting it. The resurrection of the 
Marquis suddenly appeared to him a dogma he was 
bound to defend. 

He repeated: 

“Not at all of your opinion! You are piling up 


226 


THE SECRET TOMB 

unfounded hypotheses. No: this man is not an im¬ 
postor. There is evidence in his favor which you do 
not take into account.” 

“What evidence?” she asked. 

“Well, his portrait! His indisputable resem¬ 
blance to the portrait of the Marquis de Beaugreval, 
executed by Largilliere!” 

“Who tells you that this is the portrait of the 
Marquis, and not the portrait of the man himself? 
It’s a very easy way of resembling any one.” 

“But this old frame? This canvas which dates 
from earlier days?” 

“Let us admit that the frame remained. Let us 
admit that the old canvas, instead of having been 
changed, has simply been painted over in such a 
way as to represent the false Marquis here present.” 

“And the cut-off finger?” exclaimed Maitre De- 
larue triumphantly. 

“A finger can be cut off.” 

The notary became vehement: 

“Oh, no! A thousand times, no! Whatever be 
the attraction of the benefit to be derived, one does 
not mutilate oneself. No, no: your contention falls 
to the ground. What? You represent this fellow 
as ready to cut off his finger! This fellow with his 
dull face, his air of stupidity! But he is incapable 
of it! He’s weak and a coward ...” 

The argument struck Dorothy. It threw light on 
the most obscure part of the business; and she drew 
from it exactly the conclusions it warranted. 

“You’re right,” she said. “A man like him is 
incapable of mutilating himself.” 

“In that case?” 


LAZARUS 


227 

“In that case, some one else has charged himself 
with this sinister task.” 

“Some one else has cut off the finger? An accom¬ 
plice?” 

“More than an accomplice, his chief? The brain 
which has devised these combinations is not his. He 
is not the man who has staged the adventure. He 
is only an instrument, some common rogue chosen 
for his fleshless aspect. The man who holds the 
threads remains invisible; and he is formidable.” 

The notary shivered. 

“One would say you knew him.” 

After a pause she answered slowly: 

“It is possible that I do know him. If my in¬ 
stinct does not deceive me, the master criminal is 
the man who I handed over to justice, this d’Estrei- 
cher of whom I spoke just now. While he is in 
prison his accomplices—for there are several of them 
—have taken up the work he began and are trying 
to carry it through. . . . Yes, yes,” she added, “one 
can well believe that it is d’Estreicher who has ar¬ 
ranged the whole business. He has been engaged 
in the affair for years; and such a machination is 
entirely in accord with his cunning and wily spirit. 
We must be on our guard against him. Even in 
prison he is a dangerous adversary.” 

“Dangerous . . . dangerous ...” said the no¬ 
tary, trying to reassure himself. “I don’t see what 
threatens us. Besides, the affair draws to its end. 
As regards the precious stones, open the codicil. And 
as far as I am concerned, my task is performed.” 

“It isn’t a matter of knowing whether your task is 
performed, Maitre Delarue,” Dorothy answered in 


228 


THE SECRET TOMB 


the same thoughtful tone. “It’s a matter of escap¬ 
ing a danger which is not quite clear to me but which 
permits me to expect anything, which I foresee more 
and more clearly. Where will it come from? I 
don’t know. But it exists.” 

“It’s terrible,” groaned Maitre Delarue. “How 
are we to defend ourselves? What are we to do?” 

“What are we to do?” 

She turned towards the little room which served 
as alcove. The man no longer stirred, his head and 
face buried in the shadow. 

“Question him. You quite understand that this 
super did not come here alone. They have intrusted 
him with this post, but the others are on the watch, 
the agents of d’Estreicher. They are waiting in the 
wings for the result of the comedy. They are spy¬ 
ing on us. Perhaps they hear us. Question him. 
He is going to tell us the measures to be taken 
against us in case of a check.” 

“He will not speak.” 

“But he will—he will. He is in our hands; 
and it is entirely to his interest to win our forgive¬ 
ness for the part he has played. He is one of those 
people who are always on the side of the stronger. 

. . . Look at him.” 

The man remained motionless. Not a gesture. 
However his attitude did not look natural. Sitting 
as he was, half bent over, he should have lost his 
balance. 

“Errington . . . Webster . . . light him up,” 
Dorothy ordered. 

Simultaneously the rays from the two electric 
lamps fell on him. 


LAZARUS 


229 


Some seconds passed. 

“Ah!” sighed Dorothy, who was the first to 
grasp the terrible fact; and she started back. 

All six of them were shocked by the same sight, 
at first inexplicable. The bust and the head which 
they believed to be motionless, were bending a little 
forward, with a movement which w r as hardly per¬ 
ceptible, but which did not cease. At the bottom 
of the orbits rose the eyes, quite round, eyes full of 
terror, which gleamed, like carbuncles, in the con¬ 
centric fires of the two lamps. His mouth moved 
convulsively as if to utter a cry which did not issue 
from it. Then the head settled down on to the 
chest, dragging the bust with it. They saw for 
some seconds the ebony hilt of a dagger, the blade 
of which half buried in the right shoulder, at the 
junction with the neck, was streaming with blood. 
And finally the whole body huddled on to itself. 
Slowly, like a wounded beast, the man sank to his 
knees on the stone floor, and suddenly fell in a heap. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE FOURTH MEDAL 

Violent though this sensational turn was, it pro¬ 
voked from those who witnessed it neither outcries 
nor disorder. Something mastered their terror, 
smothered their words, and restrained their ges¬ 
tures : the impossibility of conceiving how this 
murder had been committed. The impossible resur¬ 
rection of the Marquis was transformed into a 
miracle of death quite as impossible; but they could 
not deny this miracle since it had taken place before 
their eyes. In truth, they had the impression, since 
no living being had entered, that death itself had 
stepped over the threshold, crossed the room to the 
man, struck him in their presence with its invisible 
hand, and then gone away, leaving the murderous 
weapon in the corpse. None but a phantom could 
have passed. None but a phantom could have 
killed. 

“Errington,” said Dorothy, who had recovered 
her coolness more quickly than her companions, 
“there’s no one on the staircase, is there? Dario, 
surely the window is too small for any one to slip 
through? Webster and Kourobelef look to the 
walls of the alcove.” 

She stooped and took the dagger from the wound. 
No convulsion stirred the victim’s body. It was in- 

230 


THE FOURTH MEDAL 


231 

deed a corpse. An examination of the dagger and 
the clothes gave no clue. 

Errington and Dario rendered an account of their 
mission. The staircase? Empty. The window? 
Too narrow. 

They joined the Russian and the American, as 
did Dorothy also; and all five of them examined and 
sounded the walls of the alcove with such minute¬ 
ness that Dorothy expressed the absolute conviction 
of all of them when she declared in a tone of 
finality: 

“No entrance. It is impossible to admit that any 
one passed that way.” 

“Then?” stuttered the notary, who was sitting 
on the stool and had not moved for the excellent 
reason that his legs refused to be of the slightest 
use to him. “Then?” 

He asked the question with a kind of humility as 
if he regretted not having admitted without opposi¬ 
tion all Dorothy’s explanations, and promised to 
accept all she should consent to give him. Dorothy, 
who had so clearly announced the peril which threat¬ 
ened them, and so clearly elucidated all the problems 
of this obscure affair, suddenly appeared to him to 
be a woman who makes no mistake, who cannot make 
any mistake. And owing to that fact he saw in her 
a powerful protection against the attacks which were 
about to ensue. 

Dorothy for her part felt confusedly that the 
truth was prowling round her, that she was on the 
point of perceiving with perfect clearness that which 
had no form, and that it was a thing which must 
moreover astonish her infinitely. Why could she 


THE SECRET TOMB 


232 

not guess what was hidden in the shadow? It ap¬ 
peared almost as if she was afraid to guess it and 
that she was deliberately turning away from a danger 
which her intelligence would have pointed out to 
her at once, if her womanly instincts had not suffered 
her to blind herself for several minutes. 

Indeed, those several minutes, she lost them. Like 
one whom dangers surround and who doe's not 
know against which he must first defend himself, she 
shuffled about on one spot. She wasted time on 
futile phrases, keeping herself simply to the actual 
facts of the situation, in the hope perhaps that one 
of her words might strike the enlightening spark 
out of its flint. 

“Maitre Delarue, there’s a death and a crime. We 
must therefore inform the police. However . . . 
however I think we could put it off for a day or 
two.” 

“Put it off?” he protested. “That’s a step I won’t 
take. That is a formality which admits of no delay.” 

“You will never get back to Periac.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because the band which had been able to get rid 
under our very eyes of a confederate who was in 
its way, must have taken precautions, and the road 
which leads to Periac must be guarded.” 

“You believe that? . . . You believe that?” 
stuttered Maitre Delarue. 

“I believe it.” 

She answered in a hesitating fashion. At the 
moment she was suffering bitterly, being one of 
those creatures to whom uncertainty is torture. She 
had a profound impression that an essential element 


233 


THE FOURTH MEDAL 

of the truth was lacking. Protected as she was in 
that tower, with four resolute men beside her, it was 
not she who directed events. She was under the con¬ 
straint of the law of the enemy who was oppressing 
and in a way directing her as his fancy took him. 

“But it’s terrible,” lamented Maitre Delarue. “I 
cannot stay here forever. . . . My practice de¬ 
mands my attention. ... I have a wife . . . 
children.” 

“Go, Maitre Delarue. But first of all hand over 
to us the envelope of the codicil that I gave back 
to you. We will open it in your presence.” 

“Have you the right?” 

“Why not? The letter of the Marquis is explicit: 
‘In the event of Destiny having betrayed me and 
your finding no trace of me, you will yourselves open 
the envelope, and learning their hiding-place, take 
possession of the diamonds.’ That’s clear, isn’t it? 
And since we know that the Marquis is dead and 
quite dead, we have the right to take possession of 
the four diamonds of which we are the proprietors 
—all five of us . . . all five.” 

She stopped short. She had uttered words which, 
as the saying goes, clashed curiously. The contra¬ 
diction of the terms she had used—four diamonds, 
five proprietors—was so flagrant that the young men 
were struck by them, and that Maitre Delarue him¬ 
self, absorbed as he was in other matters, received 
a considerable shock. 

“As a matter of fact that’s true: you are five. 
How was it we didn’t notice that detail? You are 
five and there are only four diamonds.” 

Dario explained. 


234 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Doubtless that arises from the fact that there 
are four men and that we have only paid attention 
to this number four, four strangers in contrast with 
you, mademoiselle, who are French.” 

“But you can’t get away from the fact that you 
are five,” said Maitre Delarue. 

“And what about it?” said Webster. 

“Well, you’re five; and the Marquis, according 
to his letter, had only four sons to whom he left four 
gold medals. You understand, four gold medals?” 

Webster made the objection: 

“He could have bequeathed four . . . and left 
five.” 

He looked at Dorothy. She was silent. Was she 
going to find in this unexpected incident the solution 
of the enigma which escaped him ? She said thought¬ 
fully : 

“Always supposing that a fifth medal has not been 
fabricated since on the model of the others and 
then transmitted to us by a process of fraud.” 

“How are we to know it?” 

“Let us compare our medals,” she said. “An 
examination of them will enlighten us perhaps.” 

Webster was the first to present his medal: 

It showed no peculiarity which gave them to be¬ 
lieve that it was not one of the four original pieces 
struck by the instructions of the Marquis and con¬ 
trolled by him. An examination of the medals of 
Dario, Kourobelef, and Errington showed the same. 
Maitre Delarue who had taken all four of them 
and was examining them minutely, held out his hand 
for Dorothy’s medal. 

She had taken out the little leather purse which 


THE FOURTH MEDAL 


235 

she had slipped into her bodice. She untied the 
strings and stood amazed. The purse was empty. 

She shook it, turned it inside out. Nothing. 

“It’s gone. . . . It’s gone,” she said in a hushed 
voice. 

An astonished silence followed her declaration. 
Then the notary asked: 

“You haven’t lost it by any chance?” 

“No,” she said. “I can’t have lost it. If I had, 
I should have lost the little bag at the same time.” 

“But how do you explain it?” said the notary. 

Dario intervened a trifle dryly: 

“Mademoiselle has no need to explain. For you 
don’t pretend ...” 

“Of course none of us supposes that modemoi- 
selle has come here without having the right,” said 
the notary. “In the place of four medals there are 
five, that’s all I meant to say.” 

Dorothy said again in the most positive tones: “I 
have not lost it. From the moment it was miss- 
mg- 

She was on the point of saying: 

“From the moment it was missing from this purse 
it had been stolen from me.” 

She did not finish that sentence. Her heart was 
wrung by a sudden anguish, as she suddenly grasped 
the full meaning of such an accusation; and the 
problem presented itself to her in all its simplicity 
and with its only possible and exact solution: “The 
four pieces of gold are there . One of them has 
been stolen from me. Then one of these four men 
is a thief.” 

And this undeniable fact brought her abruptly 



THE SECRET TOMB 


236 

to such a vision of the facts, to a certainty so unfore¬ 
seen and so formidable that she needed almost super¬ 
human energy to restrain herself. It was needful 
that no one should be on their guard against her, 
before she had considered the matter and fully 
taken in the tragic aspect of the situation. She ac¬ 
cepted therefore the notary’s hypothesis and mur¬ 
mured : 

“After all . . . yes . . . that’s it. You must be 
right, Maitre Delarue, I’ve lost that medal. . . . 
But how? I can’t think in what way I could have 
lost it ... at what moment.” 

She spoke in a very low voice, an absent-minded 
voice. The parted curls showed her forehead fur¬ 
rowed by anxiety. Maitre Delarue and the four 
strangers were exchanging futile phrases; not one 
of them seemed worth her consideration. Then 
they were silent. The silence lengthened. The 
lamps were switched off. The light from the little 
window was concentrated on Dorothy. She was 
very pale, so pale that she was aware of it and hid 
her face in her hands in order to prevent them from 
perceiving the effects of the emotions which were 
racking her. 

Violent emotions, which proceeded from that 
truth that she had had such difficulty in attaining 
and which was disengaging itself from the shadows. 
It was not by scraps that she was gathering up the 
revealing clues but in a mass so to speak. The clouds 
had been swept away. In front of hen before her 
closed eyes, she saw . . . she saw. . . . Ah 1 What 
a terrifying fact! 

However she stubbornly kept herself silent and 


THE FOURTH MEDAL 237 

motionless, while to her mind there presented them¬ 
selves in quick succession during the course of a few 
seconds all the questions and all the answers, all the 
arguments and all the proofs. 

She recalled the fact that the night before at the 
village of Periac the caravan had nearly been de¬ 
stroyed by fire. Who had started that fire? And 
with what motive? Might she not suppose that one 
of those unhoped-for helpers, who had appeared so 
suddenly in the very nick of time, had taken advan¬ 
tage of the confusion to slip into the caravan, ran¬ 
sack her sleeping birth, and open the little leather 
purse hanging from a nail. 

Possessor of the medal, the chief of the gang re¬ 
turned in haste to the ruins of Roche-Periac and dis¬ 
posed his men in that peninsula, the innermost re¬ 
cesses of which must be known to him, and in which 
he had everything arranged in view of the fateful 
day, the 12th of July, 1921. Doubtless he had had 
a dress rehearsal with his confederate cast for the 
part of the sleeping Marquis. Final instructions. 
Promises of reward in the event of success. Menaces 
in the event of failure. And at noon he arrived 
quietly in front of the clock, like the other strangers, 
presented the medal, the only certificate of identity 
required, and was present at the reading of the will. 
Then came the ascent of the tower and the resur¬ 
rection of the Marquis. In another instant she 
would have handed over the codicil to him; and he 
reached his goal. The great plot which d’Estreicher 
had been so long weaving attained its end. And 
how could she fail to observe that up to the very 
last minute, there had been in the working out of 


238 THE SECRET TOMB 

that plan, in the performance of unforeseen actions, 
necessitated by the chances, the same boldness, the 
same vigor, the same methodical decision? There 
are battles which are only won when the chief is on 
the battlefield. 

He is here, she thought, distracted. He has 
escaped from prison and he is here. His confederate 
was going to betray him and join us; he killed him. 
He is here. Rid of his beard and spectacles, his 
skull shaved, his arm in a sling, disguised as a Rus¬ 
sian soldier, not speaking a word, changing his bear¬ 
ing, he was unrecognizable. But it is certainly 
d’Estreicher. Now he has his eyes fixed on me. He 
is hesitating. He is asking himself have I penetrated 
his disguise. . . . Whether he can go on with the 
comedy ... or whether he should unmask and 
compel us, revolver in hand, to hand over the codicil, 
that is to say the diamonds. 

Dorothy did not know what to do. In her place 
a man of her character and temper would have 
settled the question by throwing himself on the 
enemy. But a woman? . . . Already her legs were 
failing her; she was in the grip of terror—of terror 
also for the three young men whom d’Estreicher 
could lay low with three shots. 

She withdrew her hands from her face. Without 
turning she was aware that they were waiting, all 
four of them. D’Estreicher was one of the group, 
his eyes fixed on her . . . yes, fixed on her. . . . 
She felt the savage glare which followed her slightest 
movement and sought to discover her intentions. 

She slid a step towards the door. Her plan was 
to gain that door, bar the enemy’s way, face him, 


THE FOURTH MEDAL 


239 

and throw herself between him and the three young 
men. Blockaded against the walls of the room, with 
escape impossible, there were plenty of chances that 
he would be forced to yield to the will of three 
strong and resolute men. 

She moved yet another step, imperceptibly . . . 
then another. Ten feet separated her from the 
door. She saw on her right its heavy mass, studded 
with nails. 

She said, as if the disappearance of the medal still 
filled her mind: 

“I must have lost it ... a day or two ago. . . . 
I had it on my knee. ... I must have forgotten to 
put it back-” 

Suddenly she made her spring. 

Too late. At the very moment that she drew her¬ 
self together, d’Estreicher, foreseeing it, leapt in 
front of the door, a revolver in either outstretched 
hand. 

This sudden act was masked by no single word. 
There was no need of words indeed for the three 
young men to grasp the fact that the murderer of 
the false Marquis stood before them. Instinctively 
they recoiled from the menace; then on the instant 
pulled themselves together, and ready for the 
counterstroke, they advanced. 

Dorothy stopped them at the moment that 
d’Estreicher was on the point of shooting. Drawn 
to her full height in front of them, she protected 
them, certain that the scoundrel would not pull the 
trigger. But he was aiming straight at her bosom; 
and the young men could not stir, while, his right 



240 


THE SECRET TOMB 


arm outstretched, with his left hand still holding 
the other revolver, he felt for the lock. 

“Leave it to us, mademoiselle!” cried Webster, 
beside himself. 

“A single movement and he kills me,” she said. 

The scoundrel did not utter a word, he opened the 
door behind him, flattened himself against the wall, 
then slipped quickly out. 

The three young men sprang forward like un¬ 
leashed hounds—only to dash themselves against 
the obstacle of the heavy door. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 

For a minute or two extreme confusion reigned in 
the room. Errington and Webster struggled furi¬ 
ously with the old lock. Almost past use, it worked 
badly from the inside. Exasperated and maddened 
at having let the enemy escape, they got in one 
another’s way and their efforts only ended in their 
jamming it. 

Marco Dario raged at them. 

“Get on ! Get on! What are you messing about 
like that for? . . . It’s d’Estreicher, isn’t it, made¬ 
moiselle? The man you spoke of? He murdered 
his confederate? . . . He stole the medal from 
you? Holy Virgin, hurry up, you two!” 

Dorothy tried to reason with them: 

“Wait, I implore you. Think. We must work 
together. . . . It’s madness to act at random!” 

But they did not listen to her; and, when the door 
did open, they rushed down the staircase, while she 
called out to them: 

“I implore you. . . . They’re below. . . . 
They’re watching you.” 

Then a whistle, strident and prolonged, rent the 
air. It came from without. 

She ran to the window. Nothing was to be seen 
from it, and in despair she asked herself: 

241 


242 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“What does that mean? He isn’t calling his con¬ 
federates. They’re with him now. Then, why that 
signal?” 

She was about to go down in her turn when she 
found herself caught by her petticoat. From the 
beginning of the scene, in front of d’Estreicher and 
his leveled revolvers, Maitre Delarue had sunk 
down in the darkest corner, and now he was implor¬ 
ing her, almost on his knees: 

“You aren’t going to abandon me—with the 
corpse? . . . And then that scoundrel might come 
back! . . . His confederates!” 

She pulled him to his feet. 

“No time to lose. . . . We must go to the help 
of our friends ...” 

“Go to their help? Stout young fellows like 
them?” he cried indignantly. 

Dorothy drew him along by the hand as one leads 
a child. They went, anyhow, half-way down the 
staircase. Maitre Delarue was sniveling, Dorothy 
muttering: 

“Why that signal? To whom was it given? And 
what are they to do?” 

An idea little by little took hold of her. She 
thought of the four children who had remained at 
the inn, of Saint-Quentin, of Montfaucon. And this 
idea so tormented her that three parts of the way 
down the staircase she stopped at the hole which 
pierced the wall, which she had noticed as they came 
up. After all what could an old man and a young 
girl do to help three young men? 

“What is it?” stammered the notary. “Can one 
hear the f-f-f-fight?” 


THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 243 

“One can’t hear anything,’’ she said bending 
down. 

She squeezed herself into the narrow passage and 
crawled to the opening. Then, having looked more 
carefully than she had done in the afternoon, she 
perceived on her right, on the cornice, a good-sized 
bundle, thrust down into a crack, screened in front 
by wild plants. It was a rope-ladder. One of its 
ends was fastened to a hook driven into the wall. 

“Excellent,” she said. “It’s evident that on occa¬ 
sions d’Estreicher uses this exit. In the event of 
danger it’s an easy way to safety, since this side of 
the tower is opposite the entrance in the interior.” 

The way to safety was less easy for Maitre 
Delarue, who began by groaning. 

“Never in my life! Get down that way?” 

“Nonsense!” she said. “It isn’t thirty-five feet— 
only two stories.” 

“As well commit suicide.” 

“Do you prefer a knife stuck in you? Remember 
that d’Estreicher has only one aim—the codicil. 
And you have it.” 

Terrified, Maitre Delarue made up his mind to it, 
on condition that Dorothy descended first to make 
sure that the ladder was in a good state and that no 
rungs were missing. 

Dorothy did not bother about rungs. She gripped 
the ladder between her legs and slid from the top to 
bottom. Then catching hold of the two ropes she 
kept them as stiff as she could. The operation was 
nevertheless painful and lengthy; and Maitre 
Delarue expended so much courage on it that he 
nearly fainted at the lower rungs. The sweat 


244 THE SECRET TOMB 

trickled down his face and over his hands in great 
drops. 

With a few words Dorothy restored his courage. 

“You can hear them. . . . Don’t you hear 
them?” 

Maitre Delarue could hear nothing. But he set 
out at a run, breathless from the start, mumbling: 

“They’re after us! ... In a minute they’ll at¬ 
tack us!” 

A side-path led them through thick brushwood to 
the main path, which connected the keep with the 
clearing in which the solitary oak stood. No one 
behind them. 

More confident, Maitre Delarue threatened: 

“The blackguards! At the first house I send a 
messenger to the nearest police station. . . . Then 
I mobilize the peasants—with guns, forks and any¬ 
thing handy. And you, what’s your plan?” 

“I haven’t one.” 

“What? No plan? You?” 

“No,” she said. “I’ve acted rather at random, 
I’m afraid.” 

“Ah, you see clearly-” 

“I’m not afraid for myself.” 

“For whom?” 

“For my children.” 

Maitre Delarue exclaimed: 

“Gracious! You’ve got children?” 

“I left them at the inn.” 

“But how many have you?” 

“Four.” 

The notary was flabbergasted. 

“Four children! Then you’re married?” 



THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 245 

“No,” admitted Dorothy, not perceiving the good 
man’s mistake. “But I wish to secure their safety. 
Fortunately Saint-Quentin is not an idiot.” 

“Saint-Quentin?” 

“Yes, the eldest of the urchins ... an artful 
lad, cunning as a monkey.” 

Maitre Delarue gave up trying to understand. 
Besides, nothing was of any importance to him but 
the prospect of being overtaken before he had passed 
that narrow, devilish causeway. 

“Let’s run! Let’s run!” he said, for all that his 
shortness of breath compelled him to go slower every 
minute. “And then catch hold, mademoiselle! 
Here’s the second envelope! There’s no reason 
why I should carry such a dangerous paper on me; 
and after all it’s no business of mine.” 

She took the envelope and put it in her purse just 
as they came into the court of the clock. Maitre 
Delarue who could move only with great difficulty, 
uttered a cry of joy on perceiving his donkey in 
the act of browsing in the most peaceful fashion 
in the world, at some distance from the motorcycle 
and the two horses. 

“You’ll excuse me, mademoiselle.” 

He scrambled on to his mount. The donkey be¬ 
gan by backing; and it threw the good man into 
such a state of exasperation that he belabored its 
head and belly with thumps and kicks. The donkey 
suddenly gave in and went off like an arrow. 

Dorothy called out to him: 

“Look out, Maitre Delarue! The confederates 
have been warned!” 

The notary heard the words, on the instant leaned 


246 THE SECRET TOMB 

back in the saddle, and tugged desperately at the 
reins. But nothing could stop the brute. When 
Dorothy got clear of the ruins of the outer wall, 
she saw him a long way off, still going hard. 

Then she began to run again, in a growing dis¬ 
quiet: d’Estreicher’s whistle had been meant for con¬ 
federates posted on the mainland at the entrance to 
the peninsula the access to which they were guard¬ 
ing. She said to herself: 

“In any case if I don’t get through, Maitre 
Delarue will; and it is clear that Saint-Quentin will 
be warned and be on his guard.” 

The sea, very blue and very calm, had ebbed to 
right and left, forming two bays on the other side 
of which rose the cliff of the coast. The path down 
the gorge was distinguishable by the dark cutting 
she saw in the mass of trees which covered the pla¬ 
teau. Here and there it rose to some height. Twice 
she caught sight of the flying notary. 

But as in her turn she reached the line of the 
trees, a report rang out ahead, and a little smoke 
rose in the air above what must have been the steep¬ 
est point in the path. 

There came cries and shouts for help; then silence. 
Dorothy doubled her speed in order to help Maitre 
Delarue; undoubtedly he had been attacked. But 
after running for some minutes at such a pace that 
no sound could have reached her ears, she had 
barely time to spring out of the path to get out of 
the way of the furiously galloping donkey whose 
rider was crouching forward on its back with his 
arms knotted round its neck. Maitre Delarue, since 


THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 247 

his head was glued to the further side of its neck, 
did not even see her. 

More anxious than ever, since it was clear that 
Saint-Quentin and his comrades would not be warned 
if she did not succeed in getting through the path 
down the gorge and over the causeway, she started 
to run again. Then she caught sight of the figures 
of two men on one of the high points of the path 
in front, coming towards her. They were the con¬ 
federates. They had barred the road to Maitre 
Delarue and were now acting after the manner of 
beaters. 

She flung herself into the bushes, dropped into 
a hollow full of dead leaves, and covered herself 
with them. 

The confederates passed her in silence. She heard 
the dull noise of their hobnailed boots, which went 
further and further off in the direction of the ruins; 
and when she raised herself, they had disappeared. 

Forthwith, having no further obstacle before her, 
Dorothy made her way down the path, so correctly 
described by the board as bad going, and came to 
the causeway which joined the peninsula to the 
mainland, observed that the Baron Davernoie and 
his old flame were no longer on the edge of the 
water, mounted the slope, and hurried towards the 
inn. A little way from it she called out: 

“Saint-Quentin! . . . Saint-Quentin.” 

Getting no answer, her forebodings redoubled. 
She passed in front of the house and saw no one. 
She crossed the orchard, went to the barn, and 
jerked open the caravan door. There once more 


248 


THE SECRET TOMB 

—no one. Nothing but the children’s bags and the 
usual things. 

“Saint-Quentin! . . . Saint-Quentin!” she cried 
again. 

She returned to the house and this time she en¬ 
tered. 

The little room which formed the cafe and in 
which stood the zinc counter, was empty. Over¬ 
turned benches and chairs lay about the floor. On 
a table stood three glasses, half full, and a bottle. 

Dorothy called out: 

“Madame Amoureux!” 

She thought she heard a groan and went to the 
counter. Behind it, doubled up, her legs and arms 
bound, the landlady was lying with a handkerchief 
covering her mouth. 

“Hurt?” asked Dorothy when she had freed her 
from the gag. 

“No . . . no” . . . 

“And the children?” said the young girl in a 
shaky voice. 

“They’re all right.” 

“Where are they?” 

“Down on the beach, I think.” 

“All of them?” 

“All but one, the smallest.” 

“Montfaucon.” 

“Yes.” 

“Good heavens! What has become of him?” 

“They’ve carried him off.” 

“Who?” 

“Two men—two men who came in and asked for 
a drink. The little boy was playing near us. The 


THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 249 

others must have been amusing themselves at the 
bottom of the orchards behind the barns. We 
couldn’t hear them. And then of a sudden one of 
the men, with whom I was drinking a glass of wine, 
seized me by the throat while the second caught 
hold of the little boy. 

“ ‘Not a word,’ said they. ‘If you speak, we’ll 
squeeze your throttle. Where are the other nip¬ 
pers?’ 

“It occurred to me to say that they were down on 
the beach fishing among the rocks. 

“ ‘It’s true, that, is it, old ’un?’ said they. ‘If 
you’re lying, you’re taking a great risk. Swear it.’ 

“ ‘I swear it.’ 

“ ‘And you too, nipper, answer. Where are your 
brothers and sisters?’ 

“I was terribly afraid, madam. The little boy 
was crying. But all the same he said, and well he 
knew it wasn’t true: 

“ ‘They’re playing down below—among the 
rocks.’ 

“Then they tied me up and said: 

“ ‘You stay there. We’re coming back. And if 
we don’t find you here, look out, mother.’ 

“And off they went, taking the little boy with 
them. One of them had rolled him up in his jacket.” 

Dorothy, very pale, was considering. She asked: 

“And Saint-Quentin ?” 

“He came in about half an hour afterwards to 
look for Montfaucon. He ended by finding me. I 
told him the story: ‘Ah,’ said he, the tears in his 
eyes. ‘Whatever will mummy say?’ He wanted to 
cut my ropes. I refused. I was afraid the men 


THE SECRET TOMB 


250 

would come back. Then he took down an old broken 
gun from above the chimneypiece, a chassepot 
which dates from the time of my dead father, with¬ 
out any cartridges, and went off with the two others.” 

“But where was he going?” said Dorothy. 

“Goodness, I don’t know. I gathered they were 
going along the seashore.” 

“And how long ago is that?” 

“A good hour at least.” 

“A good hour,” murmured Dorothy. 

This time the landlady did not refuse to have her 
bonds untied. As soon as she was free she said to 
Dorothy who wished to dispatch her to Periac in 
search of help: 

“To Periac? Six miles! But, my poor lady, I 
haven’t the strength. The best thing you can do is 
to get there yourself as fast as your legs will carry 
you.” 

Dorothy did not even consider this counsel. She 
was in a hurry to return to the ruins and there join 
battle with the enemy. She set off again at a run. 

So the attack she had foreseen had indeed devel¬ 
oped; but an hour earlier—that is to say before the 
signal was given—and the two men were forthwith 
posted on the path to the causeway with the mission 
to establish a barrage, then at the whistle to fall 
back on the scene of operations. 

Only too well did Dorothy understand the mo¬ 
tive of this kidnaping. In the battle they were 
fighting it was not only a matter of stealing the 
diamonds; there was another victory for which 
d’Estreicher was striving with quite as much in¬ 
tensity and ruthlessness. Now Montfaucon, in his 


THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 251 

hands, was the pledge of victory. Cost what it 
might, whatever happened, admitting even that the 
luck turned against him, Dorothy must surrender 
at discretion and bend the knee. To save Montfau- 
con from certain death it was beyond doubt that she 
would not recoil from any act, from any trial. 

“Oh, the monster!” she murmured. “He is not 
mistaken. He holds me by what I hold dearest!” 

Several times she noticed, across the path, groups 
of small pebbles arranged in circles, or cut-off twigs, 
which were to her so much information furnished by 
Saint-Quentin. From them she learnt that the chil¬ 
dren instead of keeping straight along the path to 
the gorge, had turned off to the left and gone round 
the marsh to the seashore so betaking themselves to 
the shelter of the rocks. But she paid no attention 
to this maneuver, for she could only think of the 
danger which threatened Montfaucon and had no 
other aim than to get to his kidnapers. 

She took her way to the peninsula, mounted the 
gorge, where she met no one, and reached the pla¬ 
teau. As she did so she heard the sound of a second 
report. Some one had fired in the ruins. At whom? 
At Maitre Delarue? At one of the three young 
men? 

“Ah,” she said to herself anxiously. “Perhaps I 
ought never to have left them, those three friends 
of mine. All four of us together, we could have 
defended ourselves. Instead of that, we are far 
from one another, helpless” . . . 

What astonished her when she had crossed the 
outer wall, was the infinite silence into which she 
seemed to herself to enter. 1 l he field of battle was 


252 THE SECRET TOMB 

not large—a couple of miles long, at the most, and 
a few hundred yards across; and yet in this restricted 
space, in which perhaps nine or ten men were pitted 
against her, not a sound. Not a mutter of human 
speech. Nothing but the twittering of birds or the 
rustling of leaves, which fell gently, cautiously, as if 
things themselves were conspiring not to break the 
silence. 

“It’s terrible,” murmured Dorothy. “What is 
the meaning of it? Am I to believe that all is over? 
Or rather that nothing has begun, that the adver¬ 
saries are watching one another before coming to 
blows—on the one side Errington, Webster, and 
Dario, on the other d’Estreicher and his confeder¬ 
ates?” 

She advanced quickly into the court of the clock. 
There she saw still, near the two tied-up horses, the 
donkey, eating the leaves of a shrub, his bridle drag¬ 
ging on the ground, his saddle quite straight on his 
back, his coat shining with sweat. 

What has become of Maitre Delarue? Had he 
been able to rejoin the group of the foreigners? 
Had his mount thrown him and delivered him into 
the power of the enemy? 

Thus at every moment questions presented them¬ 
selves which it was impossible to answer. The 
shadow was thickening. 

Dorothy was not timid. During the war, in the 
ambulances in the first line, she had grown used 
more quickly than many men to the bursting of 
shells; and the hour of bombardment did not shake 
her nerves. But mistress of her nerves as she was, 
on the other hand, she was more susceptible than 


THE KIDNAPING OF MONTFAUCON 253 

a man of less courage to the influence of everything 
unknown, of everything that is unseen and unheard. 
Her extreme sensitiveness gave her a keen sense of 
danger; and at that moment she had the deepest im¬ 
pression of danger. 

She went on however. An invincible force drove 
her on till she should find her friends and Montfau- 
con should be freed. She hurried to the avenue of 
great trees, crossed the clearing of the old solitary 
oak, and mounted the rising ground on which rose 
Cocquesin tow T er. 

More and more the solitude and the silence trou¬ 
bled her. The profound silence. A solitude so 
abnormal that Dorothy reached the point of be¬ 
lieving herself to be no longer alone. Some one 
w r as watching. Men were following her as she 
went. It seemed to her that she was exposed to 
all menaces, that the barrels of guns were leveled 
at her, that she was about to fall into the trap which 
her enemy had laid. 

The impression was so strong that Dorothy, who 
knew her nature and the correctness of her pre¬ 
sentiments, reckoned it a certainty resting on irre¬ 
futable proofs. She even knew where the ambush 
was awaiting her. They had guessed that her in¬ 
stinct, her calculations, that all the circumstances of 
the drama, would bring her back to the tower; and 
there they were awaiting her. 

She stopped at the entrance of the vault. On the 
opposite side, above the steps which descended into 
the immense nave of the donjon, her enemies must 
be posted. Let her make a few more steps and 
they would capture her. 


THE SECRET TOMB 


254 

She stood quite still. She no longer doubted that 
Maitre Delarue had been taken, and that, yielding 
to threats, he had disclosed the fact that the second 
envelope was in her hands, that second envelope 
without which the diamonds of the Marquis de 
Beaugreval would never be discovered. 

A minute or two passed. No single indication 
allowed her to believe in the actual presence of the 
enemies she imagined. But the mere logic of the 
events demanded that they should be there. She 
must then act as if they were there. 

By one of those imperceptible movements which 
seemed to have no object, without letting anything 
in her attitude awake the suspicion in her invisible 
enemies that she was accomplishing a definite ac¬ 
tion, she managed to open her purse and extract the 
envelope. She crumpled it up and reduced it to a 
tiny ball. 

Then, letting her arm hang down, she went some 
steps into the vault. 

Behind her, violently, with a loud crash, some¬ 
thing fell down. It was the old feudal portcullis, 
which fell from above, came grating down its 
grooves, and blocked the entrance with its heavy 
trellis-work of massive wood. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 

Dorothy did not turn round. She was a prisoner. 

“I made no mistake,” she thought. “They are 
the masters of the field of battle. But what has 
become of the others?” 

On her right opened the entrance to the staircase 
which ascended the tower. Perhaps she might have 
fled up it and availed herself once more of the rope- 
ladder? But what use would it be? Did not the 
kidnaping of Montfaucon oblige her to fight to 
the end, in spite of the hopelessness of the conflict? 
She must throw herself into the arena, among the 
ferocious beasts. 

She went on. Though alone and without friends, 
she found herself quite cool. As she went, she let 
the little ball of paper roll down her skirt. It rolled 
along the floor and was lost among the pebbles and 
dust which covered it. 

As she came to the end of the vault, two arms 
shot out and two men covered her with their re¬ 
volvers. 

“Don’t move!” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

One of them repeated harshly: 

“Don’t move, or I shoot.” 

She looked at them. They were two subordinates, 

255 


THE SECRET TOMB 


2 56 

poisonous-looking rogues, dressed as sailors. She 
thought she recognized in them the two individuals 
who had accompanied d’Estreicher to the Manor. 
She said to them: 

“The child? What have you done with the 
child? It was you who carried him off, wasn’t it?” 

With a sudden movement they seized her arms; 
and while one kept her covered with his revolver, 
the other set about the task of searching her. But 
an imperious voice checked them: 

“Stop that. I’ll do it myself.” 

A third personage whom Dorothy had not per¬ 
ceived, stepped out from the wall where enormous 
roots of ivy had concealed him. . . . D’Estreicher! 

For all that he was still rigged out in his disguise 
of a Russian soldier, he was no longer the same 
man. Again she found him the d’Estreicher of 
Roborey and Hillocks Manor. He had resumed his 
arrogant air and his wicked expression, and did not 
try to conceal his slight limp. Now that his hair 
and beard were shaved off, she observed the flat¬ 
ness of the back of his head and the apelike devel¬ 
opment of his jaw. 

He stood a long while without speaking. Was 
he tasting the joy of triumph? One would have 
said rather that he felt a certain discomfort in the 
presence of his victim, or at least that he was hesi¬ 
tating in his attack. He walked up and down, his 
hands behind his back, stopped, then walked up and 
down again. 

He asked her: 

“Have you any weapon?” 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 257 

“None,” she declared. 

He told his two henchmen to go back to their 
comrades; then once more he began to walk up and 
down. 

Dorothy studied him carefully, searching his face 
for something human of which she might take hold. 
But there was nothing but vulgarity, baseness, and 
cunning in it. She had only herself to rely on. In 
the lists formed by the ruins of the great tower, sur¬ 
rounded by a band of scoundrels, commanded by the 
most implacable of chiefs, watched, coveted, help¬ 
less, she had as her unique resource, her subtle in¬ 
telligence. It was infinitely little, and it was much, 
since already once before, within the walls of Hill¬ 
ocks Manor, placed in the same situation, and fac¬ 
ing the same enemy, she had conquered. It was 
much because this enemy distrusted himself and so 
lost some of his advantages. 

For the moment he believed himself sure of suc¬ 
cess; and his attitude displayed all the insolence of 
one who believes he has nothing to fear. 

Their eyes met. He began: 

“How pretty she is, the little devil! A morsel fit 
for a king. It’s a pity she detests me.” And, draw¬ 
ing nearer, he added: “It really is detestation, Doro¬ 
thy?” 

She recoiled a step. He frowned. 

“Yes: I know . . . your father. . . . Bah! Your 
father was very ill. ... He would have died in any 
case. So it wasn’t really I who killed him.” 

She said: 

“And your confederate ... a little while ago? 
. . . The false Marquis.” 


THE SECRET TOMB 


258 

He sneered: 

“Don’t let’s talk about that, I beg you. A measly 
fellow not worth a single regret ... so cowardly 
and so ungrateful that, finding himself unmasked, he 
was ready to betray me—as you guessed. For noth¬ 
ing escapes you, Dorothy, and on my word it has 
been child’s play to you to solve every problem. I 
who have been working with the narrative of the 
servant Geoffrey, whose descendant I believe myself 
to be, have spent years making out what you have 
unraveled in a few minutes. Not a moment’s hesi¬ 
tation. Not a mistake. You have spotted my game 
just as if you held my cards in your hand. And what 
astonishes me most, Dorothy, is your coolness at 
this moment. For at last, my dear, you know where 
we stand.” 

“I know.” 

“And you’re not on your knees!” he exclaimed. 
“Truly I was looking to hear your supplications. 
. . . I saw you at my feet, dragging yourself along 
the ground. Instead of that, eyes which meet mine 
squarely, an attitude of provocation.” 

“I am not provoking you. I am listening.” 

“Then let us regulate our accounts. There are 
two. The account Dorothy.” He smiled. “We 
won’t talk about that yet. That comes last. And 
the account diamonds. At the present moment I 
should have been the possessor of them if you 
had not intercepted the indispensable document. 
Enough of obstacles! Maitre Delarue has con¬ 
fessed, with a revolver at his temple, that he gave 
you back the second envelope. Give it to me.” 

“If I don’t?” 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 259 

“All the worse for Montfaucon.” 

Dorothy did not even tremble. Assuredly she saw 
clearly the situation in which she found herself £nd 
understood that the duel she was fighting was much 
more serious than the first, at the Manor. There 
she expected help. Here nothing. No matter! 
With such a personage, there must be no weakening. 
The victor would be the one who should preserve 
an unshakable coolness, and should end, at some 
moment or other, by dominating the adversary. 

“To hold out to the end!” she thought stubbornly. 
“ . . . To the end. . . . And not till the last quar¬ 
ter of an hour . . . but till the last quarter of the 
last minute.” 

She stared at her enemy and said in a tone of 
command: 

“There’s a child here who is suffering. First of 
all I order you to hand him over to me.” 

“Oh, indeed,” he said ironically. “Mademoiselle 
orders. And by what right?” 

“By the right given me by the certainty that be¬ 
fore long you will be forced to obey me.” 

“By whom, my liege lady?” 

“By my three friends, Errington, Webster, and 
Dario.” 

“Of course ... of course ...” he said. 
“Those gentlemen are stout young fellows accus¬ 
tomed to field sports, and you have every right to 
count on those intrepid champions.” 

He beckoned to Dorothy to follow him and 
crossed the arena, covered with stones, which formed 
the interior of the donjon. To the right of a breach, 
which formed the opposite entrance, and behind a 


26 o 


THE SECRET TOMB 


curtain of ivy stretched over the bushes, were small 
vaulted chambers, which must have been ancient 
prisons. One still saw rings affixed to the stones 
at their base. 

In three of these cells, Errington, Webster, and 
Dario were stretched out, firmly gagged, bound with 
ropes, which reduced them to the condition of mum¬ 
mies and fastened them to the rings. Three men, 
armed with rifles, guarded them. In a fourth cell 
was the corpse of the false Marquis. The fifth con¬ 
tained Maitre Delarue and Montfaucon. The child 
was rolled up in a rug. Above a strip of stuff, which 
hid the lower part of his face, his poor eyes, full 
of tears, smiled at Dorothy. 

She crushed down the sob which rose to her throat. 
She uttered no word of protest or reproach. One 
would have said, indeed, that all these were second¬ 
ary incidents which could not affect the issue of the 
conflict. 

“Well?” chuckled d’Estreicher. “What do you 
think of your defenders? And what do you think 
of the forces at my disposal? Three comrades to 
guard the prisoners, two others posted as sentinels 
to watch the approaches. I can be easy in mind, 
what? But why, my beauty, did you leave them? 
You were the bond of union. Left to themselves, 
they let themselves be gathered in stupidly, one by 
one, at the exit from the donjon. It was no use any 
one of them struggling ... it didn’t work. Not 
one of my men got a shadow of a scratch. I had 
more trouble with M. Delarue. I had to oblige him 
with a bullet through his hat before he’d come down 
from a tree in which he had perched himself. As 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 261 

for Montfaucon, an angel of sweetness! Conse¬ 
quently, you see, your champions being out of it, you 
can only count on yourself; and that isn’t much.” 

“It’s enough,” she said. “The secret of the dia¬ 
monds depends on me and on me only. So you’re 
going to untie the bonds of my friends and set the 
child free.” 

“In return for what?” 

“In return for that I will give you the envelope 
of the Marquis de Beaugreval.” 

He looked at her. 

“Hang it, it’s an attractive offer. Then you’d 
give up the diamonds?” 

“Yes.” 

“Yourself and in the name of your friends?” 

“Yes.” 

“Give me the envelope.” 

“Cut the ropes.” 

An access of rage seized him: 

“Give me the envelope. After all I’m master. 
Give it me!” 

“No,” she said. 

“I will have it ... I will have that envelope!” 

“No,” she said, yet more forcibly. 

He snatched the purse pinned to her bodice, for 
the top of it showed above its edge. 

“Ah!” he said in a tone of victory. “The notary 
told me that you had put it in this ... as you did 
the gold medal. At last I am going to learn I” 

But there was nothing in the purse. Disappointed, 
mad with rage, he shook his fist in Dorothy’s face, 
shouting: 


262 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“That was the game, was it? Your friends set 
free, I was done. The envelope, at once!” 

“I have torn it up,” she declared. 

“You lie! One doesn’t tear up a thing like that! 
One doesn’t destroy a secret like that!” 

She repeated: 

“I tore it up; but I read it first. Cut the bonds 
qf my friends; and I reveal the secret to you.” 

He howled: 

“You lie! You lie! The envelope at once. . . . 
Ah, if you think that you can go on laughing at me 
for very long! I’ve had enough of it! For the 
last time, the envelope!” 

“No,” she said. 

He rushed towards the cell in which the child was 
lying, tore the cloak off him, seized his hair with one 
hand and began to swing him like a bundle he was 
going to throw to a distance. 

“The envelope! Or I smash his head against 
the wall!” he shouted at .Dorothy. 

He was a loathsome sight. His features were 
distorted by a horrible ferocity. His confederates 
gazed at him, laughing. 

Dorothy raised her hand in token of acceptance. 

He set the child on the ground and came back to 
her. He was covered with sweat. 

“The envelope,” he said once more. 

She explained: 

“In the entrance vault ... in this end of it, 
opening into this place ... a little ball on the 
ground, among the pebbles.” 

He called one of his confederates and repeated 
the information to him. The man went off, running. 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 263 

“It was time!” muttered the ruffian, wiping the 
sweat from his brow. “Look you, you shouldn’t 
provoke me. And then why that air of defiance?” 
he added, as if Dorothy’s coolness shamed him. 
“Damn it all! Lower your eyes! Am I not master 
here? Master of your friends . . . master of you 
. . . yes, of you.” 

He repeated this word two or three times, almost 
to himself and with a look which made Dorothy 
uneasy. But, hearing his confederate, he turned and 
called to him sharply. 

“Well?” 

“Here it is.*’ 

“You’re sure? You’re sure? Ah, here we are. 
This is the real victory.” 

He unfolded the crumpled envelope and held it 
in his hands, turning it slowly over and over as if 
it were the most precious of possessions. It had not 
been opened; the seals were intact; no one then knew 
the great secret which he was going to learn. 

He could not prevent himself from saying aloud: 

“No one ... no one but me ...” 

He unsealed the envelope. It contained a sheet 
of paper folded in two, on which only three or four 
lines were written. 

He read those lines and seemed greatly aston¬ 
ished. 

“Oh, it’s devilish clever! And I understand why 
I found nothing, nor any of those who have searched. 
The old chap was right: the hiding-place is undis- 
coverable.” 

He began to walk up and down, in silence, like a 
man who is weighing alternative actions. Then, 


264 THE SECRET TOMB 

returning to the cells, he said to the three guards, 
his finger pointing to the prisoners: 

“No means of their escaping, is there? The ropes 
are strong. Then march along to the boat and get 
ready to start.” 

H is confederates hesitated. 

‘•‘Well, what’s the matter with you?” said their 
leader. 

One of them risked saying: 

“But . . . the treasure?” 

Dorothy observed their hostile attitude. Doubt¬ 
less they distrusted one another; and the idea of 
leaving before the division of the spoil, appeared 
to endanger their interests. 

“The treasure?” he cried. “What about it? Do 
you suppose I’m going to swallow it. You’ll get 
the share you’ve been promised. I’ve sworn it. And 
a big share too.” 

He bullied all three of them, impatient to be alone. 

“Hurry up! Ah, I was forgetting. . . . Call 
your two comrades on duty; and all five of you carry 
away the false Marquis. We’ll throw him into 
the sea. In that way he’ll neither be seen nor known. 
Get on.” 

His confederates discussed the matter for a 
moment. But their leader maintained his ascendancy 
over them, and grumbling, with lowering faces, they 
obeyed his orders. 

“Six o’clock,” he said. “At seven I’ll be with 
you so that we can get off soon after dark. And 
have everything ready, mind you! Set the cabin 
in order. . . . Perhaps there’ll be an additional 
passenger.” 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 265 

Once more he looked at Dorothy and studied her 
face while his confederates moved off. 

“A passenger, or rather a lady passenger. What, 
Dorothy?” 

Always impassive, she did not answer. But her 
suffering became keener and keener. The terrible 
moment drew near. 

He still held the envelope and the letter of the 
Marquis in his hand. From his pocket he drew a 
lighter and lit it to read the instructions once more. 

“Admirable!” he murmured almost purring with 
satisfaction. “A first-class idea! ... As well 
search at the bottom of hell. Ah, that Marquis! 
What a man!” 

He twisted the paper into a long spill and put 
its end in the flame. The paper caught fire. At its 
flame he lit a cigarette with an affectation of noncha¬ 
lance, and turning toward the prisoners, he waited, 
with hand outstretched, till there remained of the 
document only a little ash which was scattered by 
the breath of the breeze. 

“Look Webster, look Errington and Dario. This 
is all you’ll ever see of the secret of your ancestor 
... a little ash. . . . It’s gone. Confess that you 
haven’t been very smart. You are three stout fel¬ 
lows and you haven’t been able either to keep the 
treasure which was waiting for you, nor to defend 
the pretty cousin whom you admired, open-mouthed. 
Hang it! There were six of us in the little room in 
the tower; and it would have been enough for one 
of you to grip hold of my collar. ... I was damned 
uncomfortable. Instead of that, what a cropper 


266 


THE SECRET TOMB 


you came. All the worse for you . . . and all the 
worse for her!” 

He showed them his revolver. 

“I shan’t need to use this. What?” he said. 
“You must have noticed that at the slightest move¬ 
ment the cords grow tighter round your throats. If 
you insist . . . it’s strangulation pure and simple. 
A word to the wise. Now, cousin Dorothy, I’m at 
your service. Follow me. We’re going to perform 
the impossible in our attempt to come to an under¬ 
standing.” 

All resistance was futile. She went with him to 
the other side of the tower across an accumulation 
of ruins, to a chamber of which there only remained 
the walls, pierced with loop-holes, which he said was 
the ancient guardroom. 

“We shall be able to talk comfortably here. 
Your suitors will be able neither to see nor hear us. 
The solitude is absolute. Look here’s a grassy 
bank. Please sit down.” 

She crossed her arms and remained standing, her 
head straight. He waited, murmured: “As you 
like”; then, taking the seat he had offered her, he 
said: 

“This is our third interview, Dorothy. The first 
time, on the terrace of Roborey, you refused my 
offers, which was to be expected. You were ignorant 
of the exact value of my information; and all I could 
seem to you was a rather odd and disreputable per¬ 
son, against who you were burning to make war. A 
very noble sentiment which imposed on the Chagny 
cousins, but which did not deceive me, since I knew 
all about the theft of the earrings. In reality you 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 267 

had only one object: to get rid, in view of the great 
windfall you hoped for, of the most dangerous com¬ 
petitor. And the chief proof of that is that im¬ 
mediately after having denounced me you hurried 
off to Hillocks Manor, where you would probably 
find the solution of the riddle, and where I was 
again brought up short by your intrigues. To turn 
young Davernoie’s head and sneak the medal, such 
was the task you undertook, and I admiringly con¬ 
fess carried it out from beginning to end. Only 
. . . only . . . d’Estreicher is not the kind of man 
to be disposed of so easily. Escape, that sham fire, 
the recovery of the medal, the capture of the codicil, 
in short complete redress. At the present moment 
the four diamonds belong to me. Whether I take 
possession of them to-morrow, or in a week, or in 
a year, is of no consequence. They are mine. 
Dozens of people, hundreds perhaps, have been 
vainly searching for them for two centuries; there 
is no reason why others should find them now. Be¬ 
hold me then exceedingly rich . . . millions and 
millions. Wealth like that permits one to become 
honest . . . which is my intention ... if always 
Dorothy consents to be the passenger of whom I 
told my men. One word in answer. Is it yes? Is 
it no?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“I knew what to expect,” he said. “All the same 
I wished to make the test . . . before having re¬ 
course to extreme measures.” 

He awaited the effect of this threat. Dorothy 
did not stir. 

“How calm you are!” he said in a tone in which 


268 


THE SECRET TOMB 


there was a note of disquiet. “However you under¬ 
stand the situation exactly ?” 

“Exactly.” 

“We’re alone. I have as pledges, as means of 
acting on you, the life of Montfaucon and the lives 
of these three bound men. Then how comes it that 
you are so calm?” 

She said clearly and positively: 

“I am calm because I know you are lost.” 

“Come, come,” he said laughing. 

“Irretrievably lost.” 

“And why?” 

“Just now, at the inn, after having learnt about 
the kidnaping of Montfaucon, I sent my three 
other boys to the nearest farms to bring all the 
peasants they met.” 

He sneered: 

“By the time they’ve got together a troop of 
peasants, I shall be a long way off.” 

“They are nearly here. I’m certain of it.” 

“Too late, my pretty dear. If I’d had the slight¬ 
est doubt, I’d have had you carried off by my men.” 

“By your men? No ...” 

“What is there to prevent it?” 

“You are afraid of them, in spite of your airs 
of wild-beast tamer. They’re asking themselves 
whether you didn’t stay here to take advantage of 
the secret you have stolen and get hold of the dia¬ 
monds. They would find an ally in me. You would 
not dare to take the risk.” 

“And then?” 

“Then that’s why I am calm.” 

He shook his head and in a grating voice: 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 269 

“A lie, little one. Play-acting. You are paler 
than the dead, for you know exactly where you 
stand. W hether I am tracked here in an hour, or 
whether my men end by betraying me, makes little 
difference. What does matter, to you, to me, is not 
what happens in an hour, but what is going to hap¬ 
pen now. And you have no doubts about what is 
going to happen, have you?” 

He rose and standing over her, studied her with 
a menacing bitterness: 

“From the first minute I was caught like an 
imbecile! Rope-dancer, acrobat, princess, thief, 
mountebank, there is something in you which over¬ 
whelms me. I have always despised women . . . 
not one has troubled me in my life. You, you attract 
me while you frighten me. Love? No. Hate. . . . 
Or rather a disease. ... A poison which burns me 
and of which I must rid myself, Dorothy.” 

He was very close to her, his eyes hard and full 
of fever. His hands hovered about the young girl’s 
shoulders, ready to throw her down. To avoid 
their grasp she had to draw back towards the wall. 
He said in a very low, breathless voice: 

“Stop laughing, Dorothy! I’ve had enough of 
your gypsy spells. The taste of your lips, that’s the 
potion that’s going to heal me. Afterwards I shall 
be able to fly and never see you again. But after¬ 
wards only. Do you understand?” 

He set his two hands on her shoulders so roughly 
that she tottered. However, she continued to defy 
him with her attitude wholly contemptuous. Her 
will was strained to prevent him from getting once 


THE SECRET TOMB 


270 

more the impression that she could tremble in the 
depths of her being and grow weak. 

“Do you understand? . . . Do you understand?” 
the man stuttered, hammering her arms and neck. 
“Do you understand that nothing can stop it? Help 
is impossible. It’s the penalty of defeat. To-day I 
avenge myself . . . and at the same time I free 
myself from you. . . . When we are separated, I 
shall be able to say to myself: ‘Yes, she hurt me, 
but I do not regret it. The denouement of the ad¬ 
venture effaces everything.’ ” 

He leant more and more heavily on the young 
girl’s shoulders, and said to her with sarcastic joy: 

“Your eyes are troubled, Dorothy! What a 
pleasure to see that! There is fear in your eyes— 
fear. . . . How beautiful they are, Dorothy! This 
is indeed the reward of victory—just a look like 
that, which is full of fear—fear of me. That is 
worth more than anything. Dorothy, Dorothy, I 
love you. . . . Forget you? What folly! If I wish 
to kiss your lips, it is that I may love you even more 
. . . and that you may love me . . . that you may 
follow me like a slave and like the mistress of my 
heart.” 

She touched the wall. The man tried to draw her 
to him. She made an effort to free herself. 

“Ah!” he cried in a sudden fury, mauling her. 
“No resistance, my dear. Give me your lips, at once, 
do you hear! If not, it’s Montfaucon who’ll pay. 
Do you want me to swing him round again as I did 
just now? Come, obey, or I’ll certainly cut across 
to his cell; and so much the worse for the brat’s 
head!” 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 271 

Dorothy was at the end of her forces. Her legs 
were bending. All her being shuddered with horror 
at this contact with the ruffian; and at the same time 
she trembled to repulse him, so great was her fear 
lest he should at once fling himself on the child. 

Her stiff arms began to bend. The man re¬ 
doubled his efforts to force her to her knees. It 
was all over. He was nearly at his goal. But at 
that moment the most unexpected sight caught her 
eye. Behind him, a few feet away, something was 
moving, something which passed through the 
opposite wall. It was the barrel of a rifle leveled 
at him through the loop-hole slit. 

On the instant she remembered that Saint- 
Quentin had carried away from the inn an old and 
useless rifle without cartridges! 

She did not make a sign which could draw d’Est- 
reicher’s attention to it. She understood Saint- 
Quentin’s maneuver. The boy threatened, but he 
could only threaten. It was for her to contrive the 
method by which that menace should as soon as 
d’Estreicher saw it directed against him, have its full 
effect. It was certain that d’Estreicher would only 
need a moment to perceive, as Dorothy herself per¬ 
ceived, the rust and the deplorable condition of the 
weapon, as harmless as a child’s gun. 

Quite clearly Dorothy perceived what she had to: 
to pull herself together, to face the enemy boldly, 
and to confuse him, were it only for a few seconds, 
as she had already succeeded in upsetting him by 
her coolness and self-control. Her safety, the 
safety of Montfaucon depended on her firmness. 
In robore fortuna f she thought. 


272 THE SECRET TOMB 

But that thought she unconsciously uttered in a 
low voice, as one utters a prayer for protection. 
And at once she felt her adversary’s grip relax. The 
old motto, on which he had so often reflected, ut¬ 
tered so quietly, at such a moment, by this woman 
whom he believed to be at bay, disconcerted him. 
He looked at her closely and was astounded. Never 
had her beautiful face worn such a serene air. Over 
the white teeth the lips opened, and the eyes, a 
moment ago terrified and despairing, now regarded 
him with the quietest smile. 

“What on earth is it?” he cried, beside himself, 
as he recalled her astounding laughter near the pool 
at Hillocks Manor. “Are you going to laugh again 
to-day?” 

“I’m laughing for the same reason: you are lost.” 

He tried to take it as a joke: 

“Hang it! How?” 

“Yes,” she declared. “I told you so from the 
first moment; and I was right.” 

“You’re mad,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. 

She noticed that he had grown more respectful, 
and sure of a victory which rested in her extraor¬ 
dinary coolness and in the absolute similarity of 
the two scenes, she repeated: 

“You are lost. The situation really is the same 
as at the Manor. There Raoul and the children 
had gone to seek for help; and of a sudden, when 
you were the master, the barrel of a gun was leveled 
at you. Here, it is the same. The three urchins 
have found men. They are there, as at the Manor 
with their guns. . . . You remember? They are 
here. The barrels of the guns are leveled at you.” 


THE LAST QUARTER OF A MINUTE 273 

“You 1 - 1 -lie!” stammered the ruffian. 

“They are there,” she declared in a yet more im¬ 
pressive tone. “I’ve heard my boys’ signal. They 
haven’t wasted time coming round the tower. They 
are on the other side of that wall.” 

“You lie!” he cried. “What you say is impos¬ 
sible !” 

She said, always with the coolness of a person no 
longer menaced by peril, and with an imperious 
contempt: 

“Turn round! . . . You’ll see their guns leveled 
at your breast. At a word from me they fire ! Turn 
round then!” 

He shrunk back. He did not wish to obey. But 
Dorothy’s eyes, blazing, irresistible, stronger than 
he, compelled him; and yielding to their compulsion, 
he turned round. 

It was the last quarter of the last minute. 

With all the force of her being, with a strength 
of conviction which did not permit the ruffian to 
think, she commanded: 

“Hands up, you blackguard! Or they’ll shoot 
you like a dog! Hands up! Shoot there! Show 
no mercy! Shoot! Hands up!” 

D’Estreicher saw the rifle. He raised his hands. 

Dorothy sprang on him and in a second tore a 
revolver from his jacket pocket, and aiming at his 
head, without her heart quickening a beat and with 
a perfectly steady hand, she said slowly, her eyes 
gleaming maliciously: 

“Idiot! I told you plainly you were lost.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE SECRET PERISHES 

The scene had not lasted a minute; and in less than 
a minute the readjustment had taken place. Defeat 
was changed to victory. 

A precarious victory. Dorothy knew that a man 
like d’Estreicher would not long remain the dupe 
of the illusion with which, by a stroke of really in¬ 
credible daring, she had filled his mind. Never¬ 
theless she essayed the impossible to bring about the 
ruffian’s capture, a capture which she could not effect 
alone, and which would only become definite if she 
kept him awed till the freeing of Webster, Erring- 
ton, and Marco Dario. 

As authoritative as if she were disposing of an 
army corps, she gave her orders to her rescuers: 

“One of you stay there with the rifle leveled, 
ready to fire at the slightest movement, and let the 
remainder of the troop go to set the prisoners free! 
Hurry up, now. Go round the tower. They’re to 
the left of the entrance—a little further on.” 

The remainder of the troop was Castor and 
Pollux, unless Saint-Quentin went with them, think¬ 
ing it best simply to leave his rifle, model 1870, rest¬ 
ing in the loophole and aimed directly at the ruffian. 

“They are going. . . . They are entering. . . . 
They are searching,” she said to herself, trying to 
follow the movements of the children. 

274 


THE SECRET PERISHES 


275 

But she saw d’Estreicher’s tense face little by 
little relax. He had looked at the barrel of the 
rifle. He had heard the quiet steps of the children, 
so different from the row which a band of peasants 
would have made. Soon she no longer doubted 
that the ruffian would escape before the others came. 

The last of his hesitation vanished; he let his arms 
fall, grinding his teeth. 

“Sold!” he said. “It’s those brats and the rifle 
is nothing but old iron! My God, you have a 
nerve!” 

“Am I to shoot?” 

“Come off it! A girl like you kills to defend 
herself, not for killing’s sake. To hand me over 
to justice? Will that give you back the diamonds? 
I would rather have my tongue torn out and be 
roasted over a slow fire than divulge the secret. 
They’re mine. I’ll take them when I please.” 

“One step forward and I shoot.” 

“Right, you’ve won the party. I’m off.” 

He listened. 

“The brats are gabbling over yonder. By the 
time they’ve untied them, I shall be a long way off. 
Au revoir. . . . We shall meet again.” 

“No,” she said. 

“Yes. I shall have the last word. The diamonds 
first. The love affair afterwards. I did wrong to 
mix the two.” 

She shook her head. 

“You will not have the diamonds. Would I let 
you go, if I weren’t sure? But, and I’ve told you 

so: you are lost.” 

“Lost? And why?” he sneered. 


THE SECRET TOMB 


276 

“I feel it.” 

He was about to reply. But the sound of voices 
nearer came to their ears. He leapt out of the 
guardroom and ran for it, bending low, through the 
bushes. 

Dorothy, who had darted after him, aimed at 
him, with a sudden determination to bring him down. 
But, after a moment’s hesitation, she lowered her 
weapon, murmuring: 

“No, no. I cannot. ... I cannot. And then 
what good would it be? Anyhow my father will be 
avenged ...” 

She went towards her friends. The boys had had 
great difficulty in freeing them, so tangled was the 
network of cords that bound them. Webster was 
the first to get to his feet and run to meet her. 

“Where is he?” 

“Gone,” she said. 

“What! You had a revolver and you let him get 
away?” 

Errington came up, then Dario, both furious. 

“He has got away? Is it possible? But which 
way did he go?” 

Webster snatched Dorothy’s weapon. 

“You hadn’t the heart to kill him? Was that it?” 

“I had not,” said Dorothy. 

“A blackguard like that! A murderer! Ah 
well, that’s not our way, I swear. Here we are, 
friends.” 

Dorothy barred their way. 

“And his confederates? There are fire or six of 
them besides d’Estreicher—all armed with rifles.” 


THE SECRET PERISHES 277 

“All the better,” said the American. “There are 
seven shots in the revolver.” 

“I beg you,” she said, fearing the result of an 
unequal battle. “I beg you. . . . Besides, it’s too 
late. . . . They must have got on board their boat.” 

“We’ll see about that.” 

The three young men set out in pursuit. She 
would have liked to go with them, but Montfaucon 
clung to her skirt, sobbing, his legs still hampered 
by his bonds. 

“Mummy . . . mummy . . . don’t go away. 
. . . I was so frightened!” 

She no longer thought of anything but him, took 
him on her knees, and consoled him. 

“You mustn’t cry, Captain dear. It’s all over. 
That nasty man won’t come back any more. Have 
you thanked Saint-Quentin ? And your comrades 
Castor and Pollux? Where would we have been 
without them, my darling?” 

She kissed the three boys tenderly. 

“Yes! Where would we have been? Ah, Saint- 
Quentin, the idea of the rifle. . . . What a find! 
You are a splendid fellow, old chap! Come and be 
kissed again! And tell me how you managed to get 
to us? I didn’t miss the little heaps of pebbles that 
you sowed along the path from the inn. But why 
did you go round the marsh ? Did you hope to get 
to the ruins of the chateau by going along the beach 

at the foot of the cliffs?” 

“Yes, mummy,” replied Saint-Quentin, very proud 

at being so complimented by her, and deeply mo/ed 
by her kisses. 

“And wasn’t it impossible?” 


THE SECRET TOMB 


278 

“Yes. But I found a better way ... on the 
sand, a little boat, which we pushed into the sea.” 

“And you had the courage, the three of you, and 
the strength to row? It must have taken you an 
hour?” 

“An hour and a half, mummy. There were heaps 
of sandbanks which blocked our way. At last we 
landed not far from here in sight of the tower. And 
when we got here I recognized the voice of 
d’Estreicher.” 

“Ah, my poor, dear darlings!” 

Again there was a deluge of kisses, which she 
rained right and left on the cheeks of Saint-Quentin, 
Castor’s forehead, and the Captain’s head. And 
she laughed! And she sang! It was so good to be 
alive. So good to be no longer face to face with a 
brute who gripped your wrists and sullied you with 
his abominable leer! But she suddenly broke off 
in the middle of these transports. 

“And Maitre Delarue? I was forgetting him!” 

He was lying at the back of his cell behind a ram¬ 
part of tall grasses. 

“Attend to him! Quick, Saint-Quentin, cut his 
ropes. Goodness! He has fainted. Look here, 
Maitre Delarue, you come to your senses. If not, 
I leave you.” 

“Leave me!” cried the notary, suddenly waking 
up. “But you’ve no right! The enemy-” 

“The enemy has run away, Maitre Delarue.” 

“He may come back. These are terrible people. 
Look at the hole their chief made in my hat! The 
donkey finished by throwing me off, just at the en¬ 
trance to the ruins. I took refuge in a tree and 



THE SECRET PERISHES 279 

refused to come down. I didn’t stay there long. 
The ruffian knocked my hat off with a bullet.” 

“Are you dead?” 

“No. But I’m suffeirng from internal pains and 
bruises.” 

“That will soon pass off, Maitre Delarue. To¬ 
morrow there won’t be anything left, I assure you. 
Saint-Quentin, I put Maitre Delarue in your charge. 
And yours, too, Montfaucon. Rub him.” 

She hurried off with the intention of joining her 
three friends, whose badly conducted expedition 
worried her. Starting out at random, without any 
plan of attack, they ran the risk once more of letting 
themselves be taken one by one. 

Happily for them, the young men did not know 
the place where d’Estreicher’s boat was moored; and 
though the portion of the peninsula situated beyond 
the ruins was of no great extent, since they were at 
once hampered by masses of rock which formed 
veritable barriers, she found all three of them. Each 
of them had lost his way in the labyrinth of little 
paths, and each of them, without knowing it, was 
returning to the tower. 

Dorothy, who had a finer sense of orientation, did 
not lose her way. She had a flair for the little paths 
which led nowhere, and instinctively chose those 
which led to her goal. Moreover she soon dis¬ 
covered foot-prints. It was the path followed regu¬ 
larly by the band in going to and fro between the 
ruins and the sea. It was no longer possible to go 
astray. 

But at this point they heard cries which came from 
a point straight ahead of them. Then the path 


28 o 


THE SECRET TOMB 

turned sharply and ran to the right. A pile of rocks 
had necessitated this change of direction, abrupt and 
rugged rocks. Nevertheless they scaled them to 
avoid making the apparently long detour. 

Dario who was the most agile and leading, sud¬ 
denly exclaimed: 

“I see them! They’re all on the boat. . . . But 
what the devil are they doing?” 

Webster joined him, revolver in hand: 

“Yes, I see them too! Let’s run down. . . . We 
shall be nearer to them.” 

Before them was the extremity of the plateau, on 
which the rocks stood, on a promontory, a hundred 
and twenty feet high, which commanded the beach. 
Two very high granite needles formed as it were the 
pillars of an open door, through which they saw the 
blue expanse of the ocean. 

“Look out! Down with you!” commanded 
Dorothy, dropping full length on the ground. 

The others flattened themselves against the 
rocky walls. 

A hundred and fifty yards in front of them, on 
the deck of a large motor fishing-boat, there was a 
group of five men; and among them a woman was 
gesticulating. On seeing Dorothy and her friends, 
one of the men turned sharply, brought his rifle to 
his shoulder, and fired. A splinter of granite flew 
from the wall near Errington. 

“Halt there! Or I’ll shoot again!” cried the 
man who had fired. 

Dorothy checked her companions. 

“What are you going to do? The cliff is perpen- 


THE SECRET PERISHES 281 

dicular. You don’t mean to jump into the empty 
air?” 

“No, but we can get back to the road and go 
round,” Dario proposed. 

“I forbid you to stir. It would be madness.” 

Webster lost his temper: 

“I’ve a revolver 1 ” 

“They have rifles, they have. Besides, you would 
get there too late. The drama would be over.” 

“What drama?” 

“Look.” 

Dominated by her, they remained quiet, sheltered 
from the bullets. Below them developed, like a per¬ 
formance at which they were compelled to be present 
without taking part in it, what Dorothy had called 
the drama; and all at once they grasped its tragic 
horror. 

The big boat was rocking beside a natural quay 
which formed the landing-place of a peaceful little 
creek. The woman and the five men were bending 
over an inert body which appeared to be bound with 
bands of red wool. The woman was apostrophizing 
this sixth individual, shaking her fists in his face, and 
heaping abuse on him, of which only a few words 
reached the ears of the young people. 

“Thief! . . . Coward! . . . You refuse, do you? 

. . . You wait a minute!” 

She gave some orders with regard to an opera¬ 
tion, for which everything was ready, for the young 
people perceived, when the group of ruffians broke 
up, that the end of a long rope which ran over the 
mainyard, was round the prisoner’s neck. Two men 
caught hold of the other end of it. 


282 THE SECRET TOMB 

The inert body was set on its feet. It stood up¬ 
right for a few seconds, like a doll one is about to 
make dance. Then, gently, without a jerk, they 
drew it up a yard from the deck. 

“D’Estreicher!” murmured one of the young men 
recognizing the Russian soldier’s cap. 

Dorothy recalled with a shudder the prediction she 
had made to her enemy directly after their meeting 
at the Chateau de Roborey. She said in a low voice: 

“Yes, d’Estreicher.” 

“What do they want from him?” 

“They want to get the diamonds from him.” 

“But he hasn’t got them.” 

“No. But they may believe he has them. I 
suspected that that was what they had in mind. I 
noticed the savage expression of their faces and the 
glances they exchanged as they left the ruins by 
d’Estreicher’s orders. They obeyed him in order 
to prepare the trap into which he has fallen.” 

Below, the figure only remained suspended from 
the yard for an instant. They lowered the doll. 
Then they drew it up again twice; and the woman 
yelled: 

“Will you speak? . . . The treasure you prom¬ 
ised us? . . . What have you done with it?” 

Beside Dorothy, Webster muttered: 

“It isn’t possible! We can’t allow them to ... ” 

“What?” said Dorothy. “You wanted to kill him 
a little while ago. . . . Do you want to save him 
now?” 

Webster and his friends did not quite know what 
they wanted. But they refused to remain inactive 
any longer in presence of this heartrending spec- 


THE SECRET PERISHES 283 

tacle. The cliff was perpendicular, but there were 
fissures and runlets of sand in it. Webster, seeing 
that the man with the rifle was no longer paying any 
attention to them, risked the descent. Dario and 
Errington followed him. 

The attempt was vain. The gang had no inten¬ 
tion of fighting. The woman started the motor. 
When the three young men set foot on the sand of 
the beach, the boat was moving out to sea, with the 
engine going full speed. The American vainly fired 
the seven shots in his revolver. 

He was furious; and he said to Dorothy who got 
down to him: 

“All the same ... all the same we should have 
acted differently. . . . There goes a band of rogues, 
clearing off under our very eyes.” 

“What can we do?” said Dorothy. “Isn’t the 
chief culprit punished? When they’re out to sea, 
they’ll search him again, and once certain that his 
pockets are really empty, that he knows the secret 
and will not reveal it, they’ll throw their chief into 
the sea, along with the false Marquis, whose corpse 
is actually at the bottom of the hold.” 

“And that’s enough for you? The punishment 
of d’Estreicher ?” 

“Yes.” 

“You hate him intensely then?” 

“He murdered my father,” she said. 

The young men bowed gravely. Then Dario 
resumed: 

“But the others? ...” 

“Let them go and get hanged somewhere else! 
It’s much better for us. The band arrested and 


284 THE SECRET TOMB 

handed over to justice would have meant an in¬ 
quiry, a trial, the whole adventure spread broad¬ 
cast. Was that to our interest? The Marquis de 
Beaugreval advised us to settle our affairs among 
ourselves.” 

Errington sighed: 

“Our affairs are all settled. The secret of the 
diamonds is lost.” 

Far away, northwards, towards Brittany, the boat 
was moving away. 

That same evening, towards nine o’clock, after 
having intrusted Maitre Delarue to the care of the 
widow Amoureux—all he thought of was getting a 
good night’s rest and returning to his office as quickly 
as possible—and after having enjoined on the widow 
absolute silence about the assault of which she had 
been the victim, Errington and Dario harnessed 
their horses to the caravan. Saint-Quentin led One- 
eyed Magpie behind it. They returned by the stony 
path up the gorge to the ruins of Roche-Periac. 
Dorothy and the children resumed possession of 
their lodging. The three young men installed them¬ 
selves in the cells of the tower. 

Next morning, early, Archibald Webster mounted 
his motor-cycle. He did not return till noon. 

“I’ve come from Sarzeau,” he said. “I have seen 
the monks of the abbey. I have bought from them 
the ruins of Roche-Periac.” 

“Heavens!” cried Dorothy. “Do you mean to 
end your days here?” 

“No; but Errington, Dario, and I wish to search 
in peace; and for peace there is no place like home.” 


THE SECRET PERISHES 


285 

“Archibald Webster, you seem to be very rich; 
are you as firmly bent on finding the diamonds as all 
that?” 

“I’m bent on this business of our ancestor Beau- 
greval ending as it ought to end, and that chance 
shouldn’t, some day or other, give those diamonds 
to some one, without any right to them, who hap¬ 
pens to come along. Will you help us, Dorothy?” 

“Goodness, no.” 

“Hang it! Why not?” 

“Because as far as I am concerned, the adventure 
came to an end with the punishment of the culprit.” 

They looked downcast. 

“Nevertheless you’re staying on?” 

“Yes, I need rest and my four boys need it too. 
Twelve days here, leading the family life with you, 
will do us a world of good. On the twenty-fourth 
of July, in the morning, I’m off.” 

“The date is fixed?” 

“Yes.” 

“For us, too?” 

“Yes. I’m taking you with me.” 

“And to where do we travel?” 

“An old Manor in Vendee where, at the end of 
July, other descendants of the lord of Beaugreval 
will find themselves gathered together. I’m eager 
to introduce you to our cousins Davernoie and 
Chagny-Roborey. After that you will be at liberty 
to return here ... to bury yourselves with the 
diamonds of Golconda.” 

“Along with you, Dorothy?” 

“Without me.” 

“In that case,” said Webster, “I sell my ruins.” 


286 


THE SECRET TOMB 


For the three young men those few days were a 
continuous enchantment. During the morning they 
searched, without any kind of method be it said, 
and with an ardor that lessened all the more quickly 
because Dorothy did not take part in their investiga¬ 
tions. Really they were only waiting for the moment 
when they would be with her again. They lunched 
together, near the caravan, which Dorothy had 
established under the shade of the big oak which 
commanded the avenue of trees. 

A delightful meal, followed by an afternoon no 
less delightful, and by an evening which they would 
have willingly prolonged till the coming of dawn. 
Not a cloud in the sky spoilt the beautiful weather. 
Not a traveler tried to make his way into their 
domain or pass beyond the notice they had nailed to 
a branch: “Private property. Man-traps.” 

They lived by themselves, with the four boys with 
whom they had become the warmest friends, and in 
whose games they took part, all seven of them in 
an ecstasy before her whom they called the wonderful 
Dorothy. 

She charmed and dazzled them. Her presence of 
mind during the painful day of the 12th of July, her 
coolness in the chamber in the tower, her journey 
to the inn, her unyielding struggle against d’Est- 
reicher, her courage, her gayety, were so many 
things that awoke in them an astounded admiration. 
She seemed to them the most natural and the most 
mysterious of creatures. For all that she lavished 
explanations on them and told them all about her 
childhood, her life as nurse, her life as showman, 
the events at the Chateau de Roborey and Hillocks 


THE SECRET PERISHES 287 

Manor, they could not bring themselves to grasp 
the fact that she was at once the Princess of 
Argonne and circus-manager, that she was just that, 
manifestly as reserved as she was fanciful, mani¬ 
festly the daughter of a grand seignior every whit as 
much as mountebank and rope-dancer. But her 
delicate tenderness towards the four children touched 
them profoundly, to such a degree did the maternal 
instinct reveal itself in her affectionate looks and 
patient care. 

On the fourth day Marco Dario succeeded in 
drawing her aside and made his proposal: 

“I have two sisters who would love you like a 
sister. I live in an old palace in which, if you would 
come to it, you would wear the air of a lady of the 
Renaissance.” 

On the fifth day the trembling Errington spoke 
to her of his mother, “who would be so happy to 
have a daughter like you.” On the sixth day it was 
Webster’s turn. On the seventh day they nearly 
came to blows. On the eighth day, they clamored 
to her to choose between them. 

“Why between you?” said she laughingly. “You 
are not the only people in my life, besides my four 
boys. I have relations, cousins, other suitors 
perhaps.” 

“Choose.” 

On the ninth day, under severe pressure, she 
promised to choose. 

“Well there,” she said. “I’ll set you all in a 
row and kiss the one who shall be my husband.” 

“When?” 

“On the first day of the month of August.” 


288 


THE SECRET TOMB 


“Swear it!” 

“I swear it.” 

After that they stopped searching for the dia¬ 
monds. As Errington observed—and Montfaucon 
had said it before him—the diamonds they desired 
were she, Dorothy. Their ancestor Beaugreval 
could not have foreseen for them a more magnificent 
treasure. 

On the morning of the 24th Dorothy gave the 
signal for their departure. They quitted the ruins 
of Roche-Periac and said good-bye to the riches of 
the Marquis de Beaugreval. 

“All the same,” said Dario. “You ought to have 
searched, cousin Dorothy. You only are capable 
of discovering what no one has discovered for two 
centuries.” 

With a careless gesture she replied: 

“Our excellent ancestor took care to tell us him¬ 
self where the fortune was to be found —In robore. 
. . . Let us accept his decision.” 

They traveled again the stages which she had 
traveled already, crossed the Vilaine, and took the 
road to Nantes. In the villages—one must live; 
and the young girl accepted help from no one— 
Dorothy’s Circus gave performances. Fresh cause 
for amazement on the part of the three foreigners. 
Dorothy conducting the parade, Dorothy on One- 
eyed Magpie, Dorothy addressing the public, what 
sparkling and picturesque scenes! 

They slept two nights at Nantes, where Dorothy 
desired to see Maitre Delarue. Quite recovered 
from his emotions, the notary welcomed her warmly, 
introduced her to his family, and kept her to lunch. 


THE SECRET PERISHES 


289 

Finally on the last day of the month, starting 
early in the morning, they reached Hillocks Manor 
in the middle of the afternoon. Dorothy left the 
caravan in front of the gateway with the boys, and 
entered, accompanied by the three young men. 

The court-yard was empty. The farm-servants 
must be at work in the fields. But through the open 
windows of the Manor they heard the noise of a 
violent discussion. 

A man’s voice, harsh and common—Dorothy 
recognized it as the voice of Voirin, the money¬ 
lender—was scolding furiously, reinforced by 
thumps on the table: 

“You’ve got to pay, Monsieur Raoul. Here’s the 
bill of sale, signed by your grandfather. At five 
o’clock on the 31st of July, 1921, three hundred 
thousand francs in bank-notes or Government securi¬ 
ties. If not, the Manor is mine. It’s four-fifty. 
Where’s the money?” 

Dorothy heard next the voice of Raoul, then the 
voice of Count Octave de Chagny offering to arrange 
to pay the sum. 

“No arrangements,” said the money-lender. 
“Bank-notes, It’s four fifty-six.” 

Archibald Webster caught Dorothy by the sleeve 
and murmured: 

“Raoul? It’s one of our cousins?” 

“Yes.” 

“And the other man?” 

“A money-lender.” 

“Offer him a check.” 

“He won’t take it.” 


THE SECRET TOMB 


290 

“Why not?” 

“He wants the Manor.” 

“What of it? We’re not going to let a thing 
like that happen.” 

Dorothy said to him: 

“You’re a good fellow, Archibald, and I thank 
you. But do you think that it’s by chance that we’re 
here on the 31st of July at four minutes to five?” 

She went towards the steps, mounted them, 
crossed the hall, and entered the room. 

Two cries greeted her appearance on the scene. 
Raoul started up, very pale, the Countess de Chagny 
ran to her. 

She stopped them with a gesture. 

In front of the table, Voirin, supported by two 
friends whom he had brought as witnesses, his papers 
and deeds spread out before him, held his watch 
in his hand. 

“Five o’clock!” he cried in a tone of victory. 

She corrected him: 

“Five o’clock by your watch, perhaps. But look 
at the clock. We have still three minutes.” 

“And what of it?” said the money-lender. 

“Well, three minutes are more than we need to 
pay this little bill and clear you out of the house.” 

She opened the traveling cape she was wearing 
and from one of its inner pockets drew a huge yellow 
envelope which she tore open. Out of it came a 
bundle of thousand-franc notes and a packet of 
securities. 

“Count, monsieur. No, not here. It would take 
rather a time; and we’re eager to be by ourselves.” 

Gently, but with a continuous pressure, she 


THE SECRET PERISHES 


291 

pushed him towards the door, and his two witnesses 
with him. 

“Excuse me, monsieur, but it’s a family party 
. . . cousins who haven’t seen one another for two 
hundred years. . . . And we’re eager to be by our¬ 
selves. . . . You’re not angry with me, are you? 
And, by the way, you will send the receipt to Mon¬ 
sieur Davernoie. Au revoir, gentlemen. . . . 
There: there’s five o’clock striking. . . . Au 
revoir.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


IN ROBORE FORTUNA 

When Dorothy had shut the door on the three 
men, she turned to find Raoul flushed and frowning; 
and he said: 

“No, no. I can’t allow it. ... You should have 
consulted me first.” 

“Don’t get angry,” she said gently. “I wished 
first of all to rid you of this fellow Voirin. That 
gives us time to think things out.” 

“IVe thought them out!” he snapped. “I con¬ 
sider that settlement null and void!” 

“I beg you, Raoul—a little patience. Postpone 
your decision till tomorrow. By tomorrow, per¬ 
haps, I shall have persuaded you.” 

She kissed the Countess de Chagny, then beckon¬ 
ing to the three strangers, she introduced them. 

“I bring you guests, madame. Our cousin George 
Errington, of London. Our cousin Marco Dario, 
of Genoa. Our cousin Archibald Webster, of 
Philadelphia. Knowing that you were to come here, 
I was determined that the family should be com¬ 
plete.” 

Thereupon she introduced Raoul Davernoie, 
Count Octave and his wife. They exchanged vigor¬ 
ous handshakes. 

“Excellent,” she said. “We are united as I 

292 


IN ROBORE FORTUNA 293 

desired, and we have thousands and thousands of 
things to talk about. I’ve seen d’Estreicher again, 
Raoul; and as I predicted he has been hanged. Also 
I met your grandfather and Juliet Assire a long way 
from here. But perhaps we are getting along a bit 
too quickly. First of all there is a most urgent duty 
to fulfill with regard to our three cousins who are 
bitter enemies of the dry regime.” 

She opened the cupboard and found a bottle of 
port and some biscuits, and as she poured out the 
wine, she set about relating her expedition to Roche- 
Periac. She told the story quickly and a trifle in¬ 
coherently, omitting details and getting them in the 
wrong order, but for the most part giving them a 
comic turn which greatly amused the Count and 
Countess de Chagny. 

“Then,” said the Countess when she came to the 
end of her story, “the diamonds are lost?” 

“That,” she replied, “is the business of my three 
cousins. Ask them.” 

During the young girl’s explanations, they had all 
three stood rather apart, listening to Dorothy, 
pleasant to their hosts, but wearing an absentminded 
air, as if they were absorbed in their own thoughts; 
and those thoughts the Countess must be thinking 
too, as well as the Count, for there was one matter 
which filled the minds of all of them and made them 
ill at ease, till it should be cleared up. 

It was Errington who took the matter up, before 
the Countess had asked the question; and he said 
to the young girl: 

“Cousin Dorothy, we don’t understand. . . . No, 


294 


THE SECRET TOMB 

we’re quite in the dark; and I think you won’t think 
us indiscreet if we speak quite openly.” 

“Speak away, Errington.” 

“Ah, well, it’s this—that three hundred thousand 
francs-” 

“Where did they come from?” said Dorothy end¬ 
ing his sentence for him. “That’s what you want 
to know, isn’t it?” 

“Well, yes.” 

She bent towards the Englishman’s ear and 
whispered: 

“All my savings . . . earned by the sweat of my 
brow.” 

“I beg you ...” 

“Doesn’t that explanation satisfy you? Then 
I’ll be frank.” 

She bent towards his other ear, and in a lower 
whisper still: 

“I stole them.” 

“Oh, don’t joke about it, cousin.” 

“But goodness, George Errington, if I did not 
steal them, what do you suppose I did do?” 

He said slowly: 

“My friends and I are asking ourselves if you 
didn’t find them.” 

“Where?” 

“In the ruins of Periac!” 

She clapped her hands. 

“Bravo! They’ve guessed it. You’re right, 
George Errington, of London: I found them at the 
foot of a tree, under a heap of dead leaves and 
stones. That’s where the Marquis de Beaugreval 
hid his bank-notes and six per cents.” 



IN ROBORE FORTUNA 295 

The other two cousins stepped forward. Marco 
Dario, who looked very worried, said gravely: “Be 
serious, cousin Dorothy, we beg you, and don’t laugh 
at us. Are we to consider the diamonds lost or 
found? It’s a matter of great importance to some 
of us—I admit that it is to me. I had given up 
hopes of them. But now all at once you let us 
imagine an unexpected miracle. Is there one?’’ 

She said: 

“But why this supposition?’’ 

“Firstly because of this unexpected money which 
we might attribute to the sale of one of the dia¬ 
monds. And then . . . and then ... I must say 
it, because it seems to us, taking it all round, quite 
impossible that you should have given up the search 
for that treasure. What? You, Dorothy, after 
months of conflicts and victories, at the moment you 
reach your goal, you suddenly decide to stand by 
with your arms folded! Not a single effort! Not 
one investigation! No, no, on your part it’s 
incredible.’’ 

She looked from one to the other mischievously. 

“So that according to you, cousins, I must have 
performed the double miracle of finding the dia¬ 
monds without searching for them.’’ 

“There’s nothing you couldn’t do,’’ said Webster 
gayly. 

The Countess supported them: 

“Nothing, Dorothy. And I see from your air 
that you’ve succeeded in this too.” 

She did not say no. She smiled quietly. They 
were all round her, curious or anxious. The 
Countess murmured: 


296 THE SECRET TOMB 

“You have succeeded. Haven’t you?” 

“Yes,” said Dorothy. 

She had succeeded! The insoluble problem, with 
which so many minds had wrestled so many times 
and at such length, for ages—she had solved it! 

“But when? At what moment?” cried George 
Errington. “You never left us!” 

“Oh, it goes a long way further back than that. 
It goes back to my visit to the Chateau de Roborey.” 

“Eh, what? What’s that you say?” cried the 
astounded Count de Chagny. 

“From the first minute I knew at any rate the 
nature of the hiding-place in which the treasure was 
shut up.” 

“But how?” 

“From the motto.” 

“From the motto?” 

“But it’s so plain! So plain that I’ve never 
understood the blindness of those who have searched 
for the treasure, and that I went so far as to declare 
the man who, when concealing a treasure, gave so 
much information about it, ingenuous in the ex¬ 
treme. But he was right, was the Marquis de 
Beaugreval. He could engrave it all over the place, 
on the clock of his chateau, on the wax of his seals, 
since to his descendants his motto meant nothing 
at all.” 

“If you knew, why didn’t you act at once?” said 
the Countess. 

“I knew the nature of the hiding-place, but not 
the spot on which it stood. This information was 
supplied by the gold medal. Three hours after my 
arrival at the ruins I knew all about it.” 


IN ROBORE FORTUNA 


297 


Marco Dario repeated several times. 

“/« robore fortuna. ... In robore fortuna. 
11 

• • • 

And the others also pronounced the three words, 
as if they were a cabalistic formula, the mere utter¬ 
ance of which is sufficient to produce marvelous 
results. 

“Dario,” she said, “you know Latin? And you, 
Errington? And you, Webster?” 

“Well enough,” said Dario, “to make out the 
sense of those three words—there’s nothing tricky 
about them. Fortuna means the fortune ...” 

“In this case the diamonds,” said she. 

“That’s right,” said Dario; and he continued his 

translation: “The diamonds are ... in robore 
11 

• • • 

“In the firm heart,” said Errington, laughing. 

“In vigor, in force,” added Webster. 

“And for you three that’s all that the word 
' robore / the ablative of the Latin word ‘robur’ 
means?” 

“Goodness, yes!” they answered. “ Robur . . . 
force . . . firmness . . . energy.” 

She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully: 

“Ah, well, I, who know just about as much Latin 
as you do, but have the very great advantage over 
you of being a country girl—to me, when I walk 
in the country and see that variety of oak which is 
called the rouvre, it nearly always occurs that the 
old French word roirure is derived from the Latin 
word ‘robur,’ which means force, and also means 
oak. And that’s what led me, when on the 12th of 
July I passed, along with you, near the oak, which 


THE SECRET TOMB 


298 

stands out so prominently in the middle of the clear¬ 
ing, at the beginning of the avenue of oaks—that’s 
what led me to make the connection between that 
tree and the hiding-place, and so to translate the 
information which our ancestor untiringly repeated 
to us: ‘I have hidden my fortune in the hollow of 
a rouvre oak.’ There you are. As you perceive,— 
it’s as simple as winking.” 

Having made her explanation with a charming 
gayety, she was silent. The three young men gazed 
at her in wonder and amazement. Her charming 
eyes were full of her simple satisfaction at having 
astonished her friends by this uncommon quality, this 
inexplicable faculty with which she was gifted. 

“You are different,” said Webster. “You belong 
to a race ... a race-” 

“A race of sound Frenchmen, who have plenty 
of good sense, like all the French.” 

“No, no,” said he, incapable of formulating the 
thoughts which oppressed all three of them. “No, 
no. It’s something else.” 

He bent down before her and brushed her hand 
with his lips. Errington and Dario also bent down 
in the same respectful act, while, to hide her emotion 
she mechanically translated: 

“Fortuna, fortune. ... In robore, in the oak.” 

And she added: 

“In the deepest depths of the oak, in the heart of 
the oak, one might say. There was about six feet 
from the ground one of those ring-shaped swellings, 
that scar which wounds in the trunks of trees leave. 
And I had an intuition that that was the place in 
which I must search, and that there the Marquis de 



IN ROBORE FORTUNA 299 

Beaugreval had buried the diamonds he was keeping 
for his second existence. There was nothing else 
to do but make the test. That’s what I did, during 
the first few nights while my three cousins were sleep¬ 
ing. Saint-Quentin and I got to work at our explor¬ 
ing with our gimlets and saws and center-bits. And 
one evening I suddenly came across something too 
hard to bore. I had not been mistaken. The open¬ 
ing was enlarged and one by one I drew out of it 
four balls of the size of a hazel-nut. All I had to do 
was to clear off a regular matrix of dirt to bring to 
light four diamonds. Here are three of them. The 
fourth is in pawn with Maitre Delarue, who very 
kindly agreed, after a good deal of hesitation, and 
a minute expert examination by his jeweler, to lend 
me the necessary money till to-morrow.” 

She gave the three diamonds to her three friends, 
magnificent stones, of the same size, quite extraor¬ 
dinary size, and cut in the old-fashioned way with 
opposing facets. Errington, Webster, and Dario 
found it disturbing merely to look at them and 
handle them. Two centuries before, the Marquis 
de Beaugreval, that strange visionary, dead of his 
splendid dream of a resurrection, had intrusted them 
to the very tree under which doubtless he used to 
go and lie and read. For two hundred years Nature 
had continued her slow and uninterrupted work of 
building walls, ever and ever thicker walls, round 
the little prison chosen with such a subtle intelligence. 
For two hundred years generation after generation 
had passed near this fabulous treasure searching 
for it perhaps by reason of a confused legend, and 
now the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of 


3 oo THE SECRET TOMB 

the good man, having discovered the undiscoverable 
secret, and penetrated to the most mysterious and 
obscure of caskets, offered them the precious stones 
which their ancestor had brought back from the 
Indies. 

“Keep them,” she said. “Three families sprung 
from the three sons of the Marquis have lived out¬ 
side France. The French descendants of the fourth 
son will share the fourth diamond.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Count Octave in 
a tone of surprise. 

“I say that we are three French heirs, you, Raoul, 
and I, that each diamond, according to the jeweler’s 
valuation is worth several millions, and that our 
rights, the rights of all three of us, are equal.” 

“My right is null,” said Count Octave. 

“Why?” she said. “We are partners. A com¬ 
pact, a promise to share the treasure made you a 
partner with my father and Raoul’s father.” 

“A lapsed compact!” cried Raoul Davernoie in 
his turn. “For my part I accept nothing. The will 
leaves no room for discussion. Four medals, four 
diamonds. Your three cousins and you, Dorothy; 
you only have the right to inherit the riches of the 
Marquis!” 

She protested warmly: 

“And you too, Raoul! You too! We fought 
together! Your grandfather was a direct descendant 
of the Marquis! He possessed the token of the 
medal!” 

“That medal was of no value.” 

“How do you know? You’ve never had it in your 
hands.” 


30i 


IN R0B0RE FORTUNA 

“I have.” 

“Impossible. There was nothing in the disc I 
fished up under your eyes. It was simply a bait to 
catch d’Estreicher. Then?” 

“When my grandfather came back from his jour¬ 
ney to Roche-Periac, where you met him with Juliet 
Assire, one day I found him weeping in the orchard. 
He was looking at a gold medal, which he let me 
take from him and look at. On it were all the indi¬ 
cations you have described. But the two faces were 
canceled by a cross, which manifestly, as I told you, 
deprived it of all value.” 

Dorothy appeared greatly surprised by this revela¬ 
tion, and she replied in an absent-minded tone: 

“Oh! . . . really? . . . You saw? ...” 

She went to one of the windows and stood there 
for some minutes, her forehead resting against a 
pane. The last veils which obscured the adventure 
were withdrawn. Really there had been two gold 
medals. One, which was invalid and belonged to Jean 
d’Argonne, had been stolen by d’Estreicher, recov¬ 
ered by Raoul’s father, and sent to the old Baron. 
The other, the valid one was the one which belonged 
to the old Baron, who, out of prudence or greed, had 
never spoken of it to his son or grandson. In his 
madness, and dispossessed in his turn of the token, 
which he had hidden in his dog’s collar, he had 
gone to win the treasure with the other medal, 
which he had intrusted to Juliet Assire, and which 
d’Estreicher had been unable to find. 

All at once Dorothy saw all the consequences 
which followed this revelation. In taking from the 
dog’s collar the medal which she believed to be hers, 


302 THE SECRET TOMB 

she had robbed Raoul of his inheritance. In re¬ 
turning to the Manor and offering alms to the son of 
the man who had been an accomplice in her father’s 
murder, she had imagined that she was performing 
an act of generosity and forgiveness, whereas she was 
merely restoring a small portion of that of which she 
had robbed him. 

She restrained herself and said nothing. She 
must act cautiously in order that Raoul might never 
suspect his father’s crime. When she came from 
the window to the middle of the room, you would 
have said that her eyes were full of tears. Never¬ 
theless she was smiling, and she said in a careless 
tone: 

“Serious business to-morrow. To-day let us re¬ 
joice at being reunited and celebrate that reunion. 
Will you invite me to dinner, Raoul? And my 
children too?” 

She had recovered all her gayety. She ran to the 
big gateway of the orchard and called the boys, who 
came joyfully. The Captain threw himself into the 
arms of the Countess de Chagny. Saint-Quentin 
kissed her hand. They abserved that Castor and 
Pollux had swollen noses, signs of a recent conflict. 

The dinner was washed down with sparkling cider 
and champagne. All the evening Dorothy was light¬ 
hearted and affectionate to them all. They felt that 
she was happy to be alive. 

Archibald Webster recalled her promise to her. 
It was the next day, the first of August, that she 
was to choose among her suitors. 

“I stick to my promise,” she said. 

“You will choose among those who are here? For 


IN ROBORE FORTUNA 303 

I suppose that cousin Raoul is not the last to come 
forward as a candidate.” 

“Among those who are here. And as there can 
be only one chosen, I insist on kissing you all 
to-night.” 

She kissed the four young men, then the Count and 
Countess, then the four boys. 

The party did not break up till midnight. 

Next morning Raoul, Octave de Chagny, his wife, 
and the three strangers were at breakfast in the 
diningroom when a farm servant brought a letter. 

Raoul looked at the handwriting and murmured 
gloomily: 

“Ah, a letter from her . . . Like the last time 
. . . She has gone.” 

He remembered, as did the Count and Countess, 
her departure from Roborey. 

He tore open the letter and read aloud: 

“Raoul, my friend, 

“I earnestly beg you to believe blindly what I am going 
to tell you. It was revealed to me by certain facts which 
I learnt only yesterday. 

“What I am writing is not a supposition, but an absolute 
certainty. I know it as surely as I know that light exists, 
and though I have very sound reasons for not divulging 
the proofs of it, I nevertheless wish you to act and think 
with the same conviction and serenity as I do myself. 

“By my eternal salvation, this is the truth. Errington, 
Webster, Dario, and you, Raoul, are the veritable heirs 
of the Marquis de Beaugreval, specified in his will. There¬ 
fore the fourth diamond is yours. Webster will be de¬ 
lighted to go to Nantes tomorrow to give Maitre Delarue 
a check for three hundred thousand francs and bring you 
back the diamond. I am sending to Maitre Delarue at 


3 o 4 THE SECRET TOMB 

the same time as the receipt which he signed, the necessaiy 
instructions. 

“I will confess, Raoul, that I felt a little disappointed 
yesterday when I discerned the truth—not much—just a 
few tears. To-day I am quite contented. I had no great 
liking for that fortune—too many crimes and too many 
horrors went with it. Some things I should never have been 
able to forget. And then . . . and then money is a prison; 
and I could not bear to live locked up. 

“Raoul, and you, my three new friends, you asked me, 
—rather by way of a joke, wasn’t it?—to choose a sweetheart 
among those who found themselves at the Manor yesterday. 
May I answer you in rather the same manner, that my 
choice is made, that it is only possible for me to devote 
myself to the youngest of my four boys first, then to the 
others? Don’t be angry with me, my friends. My heart, 
up to now, is only the heart of a mother; and it only thrills 
with tenderness, anxiety and love for them. What would 
they do if I were to leave them? What would become 
of my poor Montfaucon? They need me and the really 
healthy life we lead together. Like them I am a nomad, a 
vagabond. There is no dwelling-place as good as our 
caravan. Let me go back to the high road. 

“And then, after a time we will meet again, shall we? 
Our cousins the de Chagny will welcome us at Roborey. 
Come, let us fix a date. Christmas and New Year’s Day 
there—does that please you? 

“Good-bye, my friend. My best love to you all, and a 
few tears. ... In robore fortuna. Fortune is in the firm 
heart. 

“I kiss you all. 

“Dorothy.” 

A long silence followed the reading of this letter. 
At the end of it Count Octave said: 

“Strange creature! When one considers that she 
had the four diamonds in her pocket, that is to say 
ten or twelve million francs, and that it would have 
been so easy for her to say nothing and keep them.” 


IN ROBORE FORTUNA 


305 

But the young men did not take up this train of 
thought. For them Dorothy was the very spirit 
of happiness. And happiness was going away. 

Raoul looked at his watch and beckoned to them to 
come with him. He led them to the highest point 
of the Hillocks. 

On the horizon, on a white road which ran up¬ 
wards among the meadows, the caravan was moving. 
Three boys walked beside One-eyed Magpie. Saint- 
Quentin was leading him. 

Behind, all alone, Dorothy—Princess of Argonne 
and rope-dancer. 


H43 86 

































































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